For the first time Crimson will have a booth at the Old House New House Home Show.  This year’s event is September 25th and 26th at the Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles.  The show will feature over 300 businesses in the remodeling and building industry.

Stop by and visit us.  We will be in booth 907.  Be sure to bring your remodeling questions!

Do you remember this old concrete patio in St. Charles?  This is what the patio area looked like just eight weeks ago.  By this time, we had already replaced the patio door and cut-in two new Pella windows to overlook the new deck.  You can see the door and windows in the upper left corner of this photo.  Since this time we have been busy with backhoes, bobcats, saws, shovels, concrete trucks and landscapers to get the project to its completed state.

The new deck has Azek composite decking making up the floor, skirts and benches.  The new rails are constructed of stainless steel posts with stainless steel cables for balusters.  It’s a very cool look that goes great with this contemporary home!

You can see in the photos the new concrete storage shed that we constructed underneath this deck.  The shed is 8 feet by 14 feet and has fiberglass doors to keep out the weather (and critters).  Check out the great stone wall constructed by Western DuPage Landscaping.  The two walls together hold back about seven feet of earth and make for some great planting beds.  In the next couple of years once the plantings fill in this will be a great space.

The new deck and storage shed are now framed and the landscape work has begun.  This week there were several crews on site from Western DuPage Landscaping building retaining walls from block and natural stone found on the property.  The lanscapers also created a new walkway from the deck to the driveway and they have started on a new paver patio in front of the house as well as a new front sidewalk and porch.

Next week we will begin to trim out the deck with Azek deck boards.  We will also add low-voltage lighting in the deck to illuminate the stairs at night.  The railings have shipped and will be installed soon.  They are all made of stainless steel posts and cable.  Very modern!

The landscapers will soon have the hardscapes done and will move on to plantings and grass.  It won’t be much longer before the owners can enjoy and quite evening on a marvelous deck!

We’ve been invited back to St. Charles to work at this gorgeous property once again.  You may recall that last year we spent a few months gutting and renovating over fifty percent of the interior of this fifties ranch to make a new master bedroom suite.  Evidently the owners really liked what we did, because they asked us to come back this summer and make a new outdoor living space for them.

We started by cutting in two new windows and a patio door into the brick exterior of their home so they will be able to take advantage of the great new view we will be creating.  As you can see, our masons and to disassemble most of this wall to bring these views into the home, but it will be well worth the work!

The main scope of the project is to take a fifty year old concrete patio (with a pool buried somewhere underneath it) and turn it into a great new maintenance free deck with storage space underneath. The concrete is crumbling from fifty years of weather and it will be good to remove it and make something newer, safer and much more useable.

The new deck will be made with Azek decking (one of our favorites).  It will have two levels, built-in benches, hidden lighting and stainless steel railings.  It’s been a shame to waste these great backyard views.  A new deck will be just the thing to make backyard lounging a great pastime!

If this was the view out your back window you would never want to leave!  Well that’s exactly the attitude of the homeowners on our newest project in St. Charles.  They have a beautifully secluded piece of property and they don’t want to give it up.  Unfortunately, the house, built in the 50′s, doesn’t fit the dream. Therefore, they have hired Crimson to give all the bedrooms and bathrooms in the house a major overhaul.  Over 1000 square feet of the house will get a face lift to make better use of space.  One of the bathrooms will be a new luxurious master bathroom complete with walk-in shower.  Additionally, the master bedroom will get a new walk-in closet and a large sitting room with a view through a newly installed twelve foot wide patio door.  What a great place it will be to sit and read on a spring or fall afteroon.

As you can see, everyone is hard at work demolishing the old.  With 1-1/2″ thick plaster walls in the two bathrooms that hasn’t been easy.  As you can see from the picture, the shower and tub would have made a great fallout shelter.  But after two full dumpsters (sent to Hoving for recycling) the old is out and it’s time to start building new.  This week the framing will be completed and the new rooms will take shape.

Watch for new updates as this project progresses.