Constructing During The Pandemic
(March 2020) With our relatively mild January and February, construction was moving at a good clip. It looked like we might even finish earlier than our estimated project time of late August. Then the world experienced a catastrophic hiccup!
I still remember the day the pandemic started as something serious in my own mind. I had met with one of my favorite former bosses early that morning for a breakfast at Lou Mitchell’s in the city. He and I were catching up after several years, and right at the end of breakfast, he received a call from the office. He had to get into the office early as he needed to handle COVID crisis communications.
I was working at some office space I often use when I’m in the city, and that evening Mike and I were planning to watch the film 2040: The Regeneration showing at Loyola University as part of the One Earth Film Festival. We had already watched 8 Billion Angels that past weekend at the old Catlow Theater in Barrington and loved that film, so we were excited to catch our next festival flick. (By the way, if you are looking for a film that directly leans into one of the more challenging and less talked about topics related to climate change — population — be sure to check out 8 Billion Angels. Really well done!)
But when it got to the end of the day, and I was planning to catch a taxi up to Loyola to meet Mike at the Damen Cinema, he called me and said “I really don’t think we should go. I’m not sure it’s safe.” It’s amazing to think back to only six months ago when my reaction was, “Don’t you think we might be over-reacting just a bit at this point?” But of course, now as I write this in early August 2020, I completely own that I totally underestimated what our country and the world was about to go through! Starting in early March in the US, in the Chicagoland area, it all seemed to suddenly happen so fast. The world all around us was no longer the same, and we were hearing reports everyday about the seriousness of the situation.
Suddenly paper products vanished….
What do you do when you are quarantined on your birthday? Take a drive to the airport to see how empty it is!
Is this really O’Hare?
Only a handful of arrivals
Never seen international arrivals look like a ghost town
From January through early March, we had been so excited to open the house for neighbors to share the progress that was being made in the first couple months of work - showing the deconstructed walls, sharing the early framing work. As Community is a key pillar of our philosophy, we were looking forward to continue to open up the house to any neighbor who was interested in checking out the progress along the way, but clearly this was not meant to be with the pandemic growing in seriousness everyday.
Pre-pandemic open houses to share progress with our neighborhood community!
Welcome, welcome!
Thanks for coming ladies!
Mike explains the kitchen layout to two neighbors. ;)
You can see through the walls!
“We will have a track system in here to make storage easy!”
Amy explaining the transom window concept
Mike sharing porch plans
So here we were in the second half of March, and so much was up in the air about the safety of many things given the unknown and dangerous nature of this new virus. The words “uncharted territory” or analogous phrases were coming out of everyone’s mouths all the time. And that meant some big questions for our Happy Boolo Project.
Can we continue our project?
If we have to stop what do we need to have in place insurance-wise?
If we continue, what steps do we take to make sure everyone is safe and comfortable?
While much of the foundational framing was done and windows were in, and the electrical, mechanical and plumbing rough-ins were getting started, we did not have shingles on the roof nor did we have gutters ready to route water away from the foundation. If the state deemed that construction had to stop, Mike K, Mike B, and I were concerned that there was the risk of damage to the current structure and infrastructure being installed with spring deluges we often get if we had to suddenly stop the work for a period of time. When we checked with our insurance agent, he wasn’t quite sure what would be covered as this was uncharted territory, and like many in this area, we don’t have flood insurance.
Roof shingles needed to protect our Happy Boolo home from the typical deluge of April rains in Chicago
Rains get through the framing into the new level of the home
Mike creating makeshift protection for the new electrical infrastructure
Construction board serves as temporary gutter and downspout system
So we were very relieved to hear when the state of Illinois deemed construction essential. In states where construction had started to fully stop, we also had read that typically the work on any unfinished structure could continue until the structure was safe to leave for awhile, so we felt more comfortable that even if Illinois suddenly put a moratorium on construction, we would be allowed to continue with completing the roof which was scheduled for end of March/early April.
However, while we felt confident the integrity of our house structure would be okay, we had to think more broadly about pandemic implications to our commitment to the community pillar of our philosophy. Clearly no more neighbors coming for open houses, but rather we needed to refocus our commitment to community to the safety of everyone involved on the project. As the homeowners and the funders of this project, we felt ultimately responsible for the well-being of everyone on this project.
When I talked to some of the trades experts in the early stages of the pandemic in March, there were mixed feelings about the dangers of the virus situation. Some felt a lot of concern as they saw other countries shutting down much more strictly than we were in the US, even though Illinois took a firm stance in the context of US state shutdowns. Others were not so concerned but had family members who wished they were staying home versus continuing to work. And some of them were not that concerned. And all of them for the most part were eager to continue to work, but clearly wanted to be safe.
There was also our neighborhood community to think about. We are staying on Drury Lane because we love our neighbors. So it was critical that we make sure our neighbors, especially those living right nearby, were comfortable we were continuing. Fortunately, as we had been connecting with our neighbors regularly on our plans with some giving us direct input on the project, generally our neighbors all saw the project as a positive and exciting development on the street. Some have even indicated that it has been their entertainment while they have been quarantined at home. One neighbor consistently walks his sons down the street everyday to check out the latest status of “the mess” as his boys have named our construction site. One neighbor expressed “we love to hear the hammers and other noises over there. It gives us hope things will be okay again.”
However, we knew we had to make sure was that contractors are spread out, which is no easy task in the construction and renovation business given typically tight, overlapping, interdependent, and continually changing timeframes.
Just the mechanical crew - two trucks - staying safe! (March)
Just the drywall crew - two trucks - staying safe! (August)
More than one crew - staying safe on different levels (August)
So in March and April, it was a bit of learn-as-we-go. And there were times when TOO MANY contractors showed up at one time for it to be safe.
One day at the end of March or early April, I walked by the house early in the morning and saw too many trucks. It looked like our electrician team was there along with four plumbing team members. My gut told me: there are way too many people in one house for this to be safe. So I rang up Mike K to let him know we needed to do something quickly about this situation. He explained that he hadn’t expected that many plumbers to be there, but they had all shown up because the tub had arrived, and they needed all of them there to install it in the master bathroom. While I recognized they all just wanted to get their work done efficiently, I asked Mike to immediately decrease the number of people working there that day and going forward. Later that day, I learned that Mike K had shared with the two teams our concerns and asked them to sort out who could leave for the day, recognizing this was work they had each planned to do that day. Fortunately, the electricians from Veteran Electric volunteered to leave. Thanks Steve and Brian!
That afternoon when I caught up with one of our neighbors, she indicated she had seen the large number of trucks, and had been very concerned. So she was glad to hear we were putting some strict stakes in the ground for how many contractors could be there going forward. Typically, when more than one crew is there, it involves very few people, or someone simply stopping by to do a quick job of something, or some people working on the exterior while others are working on the interior. In other cases, when a lot of interior work is underway, the teams work on different floors or parts of the house to maintain a safe distance.
We have also learned that many of the contractors doing the work have team members working in set teams, so they are typically working with the same people. In that way, they are managing their employees’ safety. We are very grateful that all the expert tradespeople contributing to the project are continuing to work while practicing the necessary precautions to be safe during this challenging time.
And yes this whole pandemic has meant at least two more months added to our timeframe, but it’s worth it for our Happy Boolo Project to be safe space for everyone to work.
Clearly when we made this video, we knew this pandemic was serious, but we had no idea how serious, how widespread and how long-lasting it would be! We hope that within the next year, we can have people on our porch and in our home to break bread together once again.
Be well and stay safe everyone!!
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