The owner wanted to change a plain window into one with embellishments like two others on the house. I was hired to duplicate the elements from the old window. On the left is the original old window which is to be duplicated on the right. The framing is finished on the right but the details […]
Porch reconstruction at 327 W. Chicago W. W. Abell, a prominent Elgin architect, designed the house at 327 W. Chicago. A contractor friend was hired to rebuild a rotting porch and he asked me to make the details. It was very satisfying working on a porch of that stature. It needed a new porch apron. […]
Abandoned Italiante home on Lake St in Hanover Park. We drove past this wonderful old house hundreds of times going to and from work in the 70’s and 80’s. We so wished that someone would rehab it. The dormer in the roof is unusual for this style of house. Here is an old […]
706 Douglas is a wonderful house in the Spring Douglas Historic District that was designed by prominent Elgin Architect W. W. Abell. Below is how it looked a few years ago. The elderly woman that lived there was strong-willed and opinionated. I once told her that the wrought iron porch posts were not original to […]
Great new porch for an 1846 Greek Revival home The Historical Society is rehabbing the oldest home in Elgin. The city bought the problem property that was six units. They are keeping possession but letting the Historical Society rehab the property for their use. The interior is almost finished so they switched to putting back […]
The porch columns on this building were coming apart and some of the tops and bottoms were rotting with the beam sagging. The owner took it apart, put in a new beam and I repaired the posts and remade the tops and bases. The coopered columns on this apartment building are 18 inches in […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
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 […]