Entries by Dan Miller

,

Repairing rotten balusters

  The people that rehabbed this porch used balusters designed for interior use. Had they painted or caulked the end grain it would’ve helped them last longer.  After installation, they needed to have the edges of the bottoms caulked so that water can’t get into the end grain. You always have to seal the end […]

,

Lamps from spindles

Here is a picture taken in 1981 of a house in our neighborhood. The wrought iron rail and posts are not appropriate for the house so the owner decided to put in more appropriate spindles for the balustrades and posts for support. He bought new spindles and installed them along with additional porch posts as […]

,

Nancy Kimball Cobblestone at 302 W. Chicago

Nancy Kimball Cobblestone interior and exterior rehabilitation 302 W. Chicago was built in 1846 by the Kimball brothers for their mother Nancy. The Kimballs were some of the founding fathers of Elgin. It is one of many cobblestone structures in Elgin. An early picture of the home is shown below.    Pictured below are the […]

,

Jean’s Hall Tree

The picture below is how our back porch looked in 1986 when we bought our house. The stucco had been added in the ’20s to modernize the home. Here it is being torn off. The wall of what was originally a pantry was bumped out to make a bigger apartment kitchen. The sleeping porch had […]

14 – 16 S. Chapel

Here is a picutre of 14-16 S. Chapel in 1981. It was an all brick building that someone added the stucco and Prairie influenced porch to. In recent times, the apartments were never nice and only attracted desperate people. The Code Dept. cited a deteriorating porch so the owner, working with the city’s Preservation Planner […]

,

Men’s shed project

Jill Harkins wrote an article on April 30th for the Philadelphia Citizen. Here are some excerpts from the article. Men’s shed is a global nonprofit making its way across the U.S. It is fighting loneliness and depression in older men by bringing them togetter to build things. Men’s Sheds are gathering spaces in which men get together […]

,

Custom porch post bases

Mike Howell with Carpentry with Integrity was the winning bidder to rebuild a porch on a wonderful old house. The bases were rotten, the posts marginal, and the terra cotta ionic capitols had so much paint on them they were almost undistinguishable. The floor needed replacing. The owner wanted low maintenance so fiberglass columns were […]

,

The resurrection of 326 E. Chicago

Neighborhood Housing Services came to Elgin in the early ’80s.  it was to be a partnership between the city, the banks, and the citizens of Elgin. The Gifford Park Association was instrumental in bringing it to Elgin so three of our board members also board members of Neighborhood Housing Services. People often got the two […]

,

315 – 317 DuPage in Elgin

315 -317 DuPage had been a problem property for decades. Here it is in 1981. Here it is in 2008 Kurt Kresmery, a local investor bought it and rehabbed the interior nicely so it attracts great tenants. Here it is after rehabbing the interior and painting the exterior. Kurt is a friend of mine so […]

,

Missing Curved Porch Rail Restored

A short section of curved porch rail rotted off and the owner replaced it with some terrible workmanship. Notice the two spindles on the right and the one on the far left are upside down from the others. The contractor could not make a curve so he turned it into two straight lines. The poor […]