The Roofing Supplies Arrive!

The roofer's crane arrives in our alley. The driver cleared the telephone pole by about 3 inches! Very impressive!



A semi truck full of roofing supplies arrived. The forklift took 75 bundles of foam insulation to the crane and hoisted it to our roof. The area we cleared off outside our 4th floor penthouse was the staging area for all of the supplies and equipment that the roofers brought up by crane.


A view of the extended crane from our Kitchen Deck. The deck is now crammed with trees and bushes from the Rooftop Deck.

A view from our 3rd floor Master Bedroom as the crane hoists one of the pallets of roofing supplies up to our roof


They already cut the air conditioners off from the first 3 units. (We're in the 2nd 3 units that will be worked on). Our A/C is scheduled to be shut off on the 6th or 7th depending on if all goes on schedule.

Visitor to the Kitchen Garden & Some Courtyard Photos

One of the first butterflies to visit the Kitchen Deck. This butterfly was spotted on the same lantana plant two days in a row.

Below are some photos of the courtyard as seen from our Rooftop Deck. Christy Weber Landscaping does the work. The courtyard looks really nice in the spring and early summer when the purple irises bloom along with the yellow daffodils. Right now the irises are starting to fade and the hot pink rose bushes are in bloom. Soon the yellow and orange day lilies will send up their flowering stems.

We have a small section of landscaping right outside our first floor window (you can't see it in any of the pictures) that we add seasonal flowers too (tulips, lily of the valley, muscari, pansies, canna, mums, etc.).

The soil in the courtyard is HORRIBLE. When they built this place 7 years ago I heard that they just dumped construction rubble in the courtyard and covered it with a think layer of earth. That's why when you plant something you really have to water it and nurture it to get it to grow strong enough to get it's roots to move beyond the silt and rocks into the real soil.

Spent the Day Ripping up the Rooftop Deck

Well, the roofers are coming tomorrow to start work on our complex. We are supposed to remove our deck and everything on the rooftop at least 48 hours before they are scheduled to begin working on our unit. They're scheduled to begin on Thursday the 7th, so we have to be cleared off by Tuesday the 5th.

We spent the entire day up on the rooftop pulling up the 300+ square feet of deck, powerwashing it, cleaning off the membrane, taking planters down to the kitchen deck and then moving the deck we're keeping into our 4th floor penthouse and cutting up the part of the deck we're throwing away.

PHOTO: cutting up the old 10'x10' section of deck into 5' sections for the garbage.


It was a PAIN! We started around 9:30 this morning and finished with the deck around 5:30 pm just as a torrential rain started to pour.

At 10 am we had a showing of our place which I had to do myself since our realtor never heard back from the buyer's realtor so she assumed they weren't confirmed. Well, they showed up at 10, so we got them to give us 20 minutes to get the place ready for a showing.

PHOTO: lifting up, cutting and cleaning the sections of the deck we're keeping


I hate the home selling process. It's so nerve wrecking! And now with this roof construction it really throws a wrench in our selling plans.

We don't want to do any showings until the construction on our section of the roof is done and we can re-lay the deck. Right now we have about 200 square feet of cedar decking inside our 4th floor penthouse along with 2 Adirondack chairs.

We wound up having to take all our furniture from the penthouse and repositioning it to other rooms throughout the house so we could make room for all the decking. So now the rest of the house looks more cramped because of the extra furniture here and there.

PHOTO:powerwashing the deck before storing it in our 4th floor penthouse


We also had to bring 3 cedar planters with 4 curly willows and 1 dogwood down from the roof to the kitchen deck. Our kitchen deck is crazy busy with plants right now.

The willow was an absolute pain to try to dig up (we had to dig the trees and bush out of the planters so that we could carry them down - too heavy if left in planters). I think it took me a good hour to just to dig the willows out of the 2 planters.


So now we're exhausted and sunburned and ready for some carry-out from Penny's Noodle Shop in Wicker Park!

Some pictures from the Kitchen Deck

L to R: Greek Oregano, Potato Vine, Parsley, Sage, Genovese Basil, Thyme

My "Peach Sunrise" lantana - this one is my favorite! It looks really nice planted up with the "Diamond Frost" euphorbia and the "Oceana Blue" salvia.

My "Bandanna Red" lantanas are planted up with ornamental kale and lavender.

My "Bandanna Cherry" lantana along with the "European Uprights Juicy Tidbits" fucscia

The cherry 2 cherry tomato plants are busy making fruit!

The peas have begun to bloom!

Everything is growing very nicely. We had a nice rain last night and a few more days of rain expected over the next few days.

We had a showing this afternoon and another one scheduled for Sunday. It's very hard to keep the house spotlessly clean with a 9 month old and a floral business. (I do freelance floral design and have an event going on tomorrow).

Aside from cleaning the house, I've been busy working on centerpieces of red spray roses, purple statice, yellow alstromeria, green yoko ono mums, fresh wheat, bi-color orange/yellow mini carnations and yellow mums (the kind that look like mini-sunflowers) in rose bowls. I have 36 centerpieces, 6 presentation bouquets and 12 presentation roses to make for a graduation dinner tomorrow. Maybe I'll post some photos of the finished product tomorrow.