chicago custom home builder Archives - Follyn Builders | Chicago and Northshore Custom Home Builders

March 5, 2016 By Admin

Paint picking (better than other kinds of picking)

So things are moving along pretty quickly and now the fun stuff starts. THE FINISHES!!! You know, trim and tile and light fixtures and door knobs. But first comes… the paint.

The thing everyone loves to hate. Picking out the perfect paint color.

Walk into a paint store and hyperventilate from all the color choices. So, first step? Take a breath.

Next step, narrow it down.

Eliminate all those oranges and yellows and baby blues that are just not going to work for you. If you know you love a neutral gray – head for the grays. Now think about undertones. Blueish gray? Or beigeish gray? Or whiteish gray? That will help you narrow down the possibilities in a big hurry.

Now take your 2 or 3 contenders and bring the samples home.

Do not paint a 2 inch x 2 inch square on the wall and run with it. Wrong!

Paint multiple big patches – like 2 FOOT x 3 FOOT swatches. Now label that patch (you think you will remember, but you won’t). Now do the same thing in 2 other places in that room. How the color looks will change even in the same room depending on proximity to windows and lights and other furnishings.

Now, pick the color you love best in EVERY location and get painting.

See? Easy. Now do that in all the other rooms and we can move on! It is your custom home – make it your custom colorsa (or wallpaper, I am loving wallpaper).

January 16, 2016 By Admin

Whole Lotta Fixin Going On!

Well folks, things have moved into hyper-drive on this custom home in Andersonville. I visited this â€œold home to new homeâ€ project this past week and could not believe the amount of activity and the number of contractors all working at the same time. If I saw it on TV I would think it was staged! How they don’t all bump into each other I do not know, but they were all there working hard and listening to 80’s rock. I kid you not.

Honestly — so much was going on I think I will have to break it into 2 posts. Hey, if it worked for the Harry Potter movies it can work for me.

By my quick count this is the list of contractors in the house on Friday, some on Saturday and one on SUNDAY last week:

the fearless general contractor (aka the hubby)
the hardwood floor installers
the HVAC contractor
the painters
the electrician
the tilers
That my friend is a whole lot of action! So letâ€™s take a look at the hardwood floors.

As previously mentioned this is an old grey stone 2-flat in Andersonville that is in the process of becoming a new single family home. So for a lot of years it was 2 separate units, with 2 kitchens, 2 baths, 2 bedroom upstairs, 2 bedrooms downstairs, etc. And throughout both units were hardwoods floors.

The plan was to keep those old hardwood floors. As with many things in life â€“ it was a great idea but not so good for implementing. Once we got in there and started removing walls and rearranging fixtures, it became apparent; those old floors were not something we could salvage. They were too damaged and too thin. New hardwood floors throughout were ordered. Install is almost complete and they look stunning!

Next up is the HVAC systems. Who knows what that is? Anyone? Anyone? The heating air conditioning and cooling systems. Again when this was 2 separate units, it had 2 separate (and really old) heating and cooling systems. Not only do you need newer, more efficient heating and cooling units, with all new walls and floors â€“ you need all new duct work.

One of the most important piece of any HVAC system is making sure it is properly balanced. Having units that are too big or too small for your home is going to cost you every month in heating and cooling bills. Make sure everything is sized accurately for maximum efficiency. Not glamorous, but every month when you pay that gas bill you will thank me for your spray foam insulation, good quality windows and efficient, properly sized HVAC units. And you are welcome.

I think that is enough custom home information for this post (I know most of you are saying TMI), next up we have electricians and painters and tilersâ€¦oh my!

December 8, 2015 By Admin

Insulation! Ok, not so exciting unless its winter in CHICAGO!

Just in time — insulation has arrived at this custom home in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood. So it is suddenly MUCH quieter and MUCH warmer inside – with no heat on!

Spray foam insulation is newer to the scene that the classic pink fiberglass insulation we all know (Pink Panther has the answer, right?). While the pink stuff has worked great for a lot of years, there is really no comparison to the tight seal and instant warmth with spray foam insulation.

The crew arrives and tapes off all the windows and floors and covers them in plastic. Then they fire up the truck that mixes the actual material, they suit up and start spraying. They fill in between all the exterior framing and up into the roof rafters.

There are 2 kinds of spray foam insulation – open cell and closed cell. Each has different attributes and each is suited to different applications. Here we are using both open and closed cell – closed in the walls, open in some walls and the inaccessible ceilings. Make sure you know what is going where, and why. Some folks only want one kind or the other, but it really should be location driven – the location of the insulation, not the location of your house!

At this point all the rough mechanicals are in – electrical, heating & cooling and plumbing. All the “rough” work – also known as that stuff inside the walls you don’t see but is crazy important to do right – is done. So the spray foam insulation is applied around or on all those rough applications.

When creating a new custom home from an existing 2-flat, it is important that all that stuff inside the walls is done correctly – everything old was ripped out, everything new needs to be up to today’s standards and codes. Once all that nitty gritty stuff is installed and updated and correct – on the funner stuff — finishes you can see!

Next week – DRYWALL!!

all mechanicals are in, insualtion is applied in this custom home by Follyn Builders

getting warm in Follyn Builders custom home

custom built home means

overfill is trimmed off the new insulation in Chicago custom home

every space if filled with insulation in this custom Chicago home

insulation all the way up to the ceiling in this Andersonvilel Chicago custom home

November 6, 2015 By Admin

Creating a NEW home : let the sun shine in (but no bugs)

So you gut everything out of a Chicago grey stone 2-flat and get it down to the bare bones. Lots of mess, lots of fun with sledge hammers if you like that sort of thing. Then comes the putting it all back together part – way more fun if you like this sort of thing. You know, the custom home in Andersonville kind of thing. I do, I like this sort of thing.

So we had demolition, then we re-built the interior walls. Next up — windows! I bet you forgot about that part? When you smash everything apart, you live big ole gaping holes all over the building. Some opening got smaller, some got removed all together, a few got added. All got new windows with black exterior to go with the updated new look. So, new windows it is. Energy fficient, air tight and no more bugs.

Also going in this week – rough plumbing, electrical wiring and HVAC duct work (that my friends is for the heat to keep you warm in winter and AC to keep you cool in summer). Lots of little bits and moving peices but we are well on our way.

Also check out the NAKED brick picture. That is the same wall from the last post – except it was coated in layer upon layer of white paint in the last picture. Sandblasting all that off revelaed this classic Chicago brick. So cool the homeowner decided to forego drywall in this room and leave the brick exposed.

I will share pictures of the other mechanicals inside the walls next. I know, I know not sexy but when you are building a quality single family home, the sexy comes later, the quality comes now.