We have our alley back!
The Key Bank exterior work is completed. Everything outside looks finished and all the barricades were removed after some final noise yesterday afternoon (asphalt pouring). Most importantly for us, the alley behind our house and looping back into our block is once again open for through traffic.
It seems everything finished at once. Tuesday morning, as I remember (although it may have been Monday), the big sign install people rumbled past our house to get the Key Bank sign up (to replace the temporary plastic banner they had for the last several months. The area in front of the bank has nice sidewalks with curbcuts and planted trees every 10 feet or so.
Overall it is a nice improvement to the crumbling paved over mess lorded over by KFC since the late 1960s.
On the dark side: the black chain link fence providing the barrier between the residential part of the block and the bankier side. No longer can you drive straight through the alley and onto the parking lot: you have to take the alley loop, hemmed in by that ugly fence.
So, what's next for our block? It seems every house and lot has had a face-lift. Across from us we got new townhouse apartments. Next to us most recently we got two new attached houses (badhouse). The house further on down is gradually shaping up and next to theirs is the house next to the alley loop: they've added a front deck and keep it well maintained. Across the street from it is a house which sold fairly recently. Our immediate neighbor home to the north is gradually improving with a tool shed just erected.
Guess it's our turn. This year just getting the house ready for Betty was the main concern. I have a lot of sweat equity to go on the aftermath of that work: mainly in the back yard. There were other things I would have liked to have accomplished...but for now just trying to continue to reduce the stuff in the basement.
The real focus for our house work eventually will start in the basement: creating a new entrance and new bathrooms in both the basement and 1st floors with a rebuilt back part of the house and a 2nd floor deck attached to a rebuilt bedroom-bathroom-closet suite. That is what I would like to start with. 2012 maybe.
Then--expansion of the living room to half of the front porch with a bay window and fireplace, the other half of the front porch opened up expanded to the side of the house. All wood windows would be renovated with more energy efficient construction. The dining room would open up to the outside with French Doors rescued from the porch changes. The exterior siding would be brought back to the original clapboard and the asbestos removed. 2013.
The kitchen is then on the agenda (although it might come in after the rebuild of the back part of the house). 2014.
Finally we'd finish any work on the house roof (dormers? skylights? and give it a 50-year roof (rubber, metal?) and top it with solar panels and a solar water heating panel. We'd return to the basement for finishing as needed for a variety of purposes. 2015.
The scope of the work might have to be phased over a greater period, with each year's activities stretching over two years instead...both for financial reasons and our own sanity.
I can still dream, anyway.
It seems everything finished at once. Tuesday morning, as I remember (although it may have been Monday), the big sign install people rumbled past our house to get the Key Bank sign up (to replace the temporary plastic banner they had for the last several months. The area in front of the bank has nice sidewalks with curbcuts and planted trees every 10 feet or so.
Overall it is a nice improvement to the crumbling paved over mess lorded over by KFC since the late 1960s.
On the dark side: the black chain link fence providing the barrier between the residential part of the block and the bankier side. No longer can you drive straight through the alley and onto the parking lot: you have to take the alley loop, hemmed in by that ugly fence.
So, what's next for our block? It seems every house and lot has had a face-lift. Across from us we got new townhouse apartments. Next to us most recently we got two new attached houses (badhouse). The house further on down is gradually shaping up and next to theirs is the house next to the alley loop: they've added a front deck and keep it well maintained. Across the street from it is a house which sold fairly recently. Our immediate neighbor home to the north is gradually improving with a tool shed just erected.
Guess it's our turn. This year just getting the house ready for Betty was the main concern. I have a lot of sweat equity to go on the aftermath of that work: mainly in the back yard. There were other things I would have liked to have accomplished...but for now just trying to continue to reduce the stuff in the basement.
The real focus for our house work eventually will start in the basement: creating a new entrance and new bathrooms in both the basement and 1st floors with a rebuilt back part of the house and a 2nd floor deck attached to a rebuilt bedroom-bathroom-closet suite. That is what I would like to start with. 2012 maybe.
Then--expansion of the living room to half of the front porch with a bay window and fireplace, the other half of the front porch opened up expanded to the side of the house. All wood windows would be renovated with more energy efficient construction. The dining room would open up to the outside with French Doors rescued from the porch changes. The exterior siding would be brought back to the original clapboard and the asbestos removed. 2013.
The kitchen is then on the agenda (although it might come in after the rebuild of the back part of the house). 2014.
Finally we'd finish any work on the house roof (dormers? skylights? and give it a 50-year roof (rubber, metal?) and top it with solar panels and a solar water heating panel. We'd return to the basement for finishing as needed for a variety of purposes. 2015.
The scope of the work might have to be phased over a greater period, with each year's activities stretching over two years instead...both for financial reasons and our own sanity.
I can still dream, anyway.