House in Progress Diary

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Day One: Windows that OPEN!

Yawn! Make a mad dash for the coffee! Because the crew of Just Sashes is arriving to help out with the original wood windows today!!

Yep...these are the windows that were built with the house in 1914...and we're keeping 'em. The storms, the screens, the WHOLE thing. Why?

A) They're gorgeous, practical works of art...the eyes of the house.

B) When restored properly, they will be weathertight as well as beautiful. (They are NOT maintenance free, however. If you are looking for maintenance free, restoration may not be for you.)

C) It will cost us less to restore these windows than to replace them with a vinyl clad wood window. This is based on the number of windows we have (25) and the shape that they are in.

(NOTE: We should have 30 windows and we actually have 40. But we will eventually do some major first floor remodeling that takes off the old "slapped together room" on the back of the first floor...so subtract 4 windows and add a french door. We will also replace the kitchen windows later...they aren't original to the room and are literally glued onto the house. We aren't touching the basement windows. And we still can't decide what to do with the downstairs bathroom glass block window...I think that I will be cleaning windows for the rest of my life.)

We read up on restoring windows in a book by Terence Meany called Working Windows...it's a great book! Many people do work on their own windows, including our Bungalow Pals.

But we knew we needed professional help. For one, we had a few of these:

HALF windows. Yes. The previous owners had cut up windows to permanently install window air conditioning units. Plus many of the windows were painted (pretty common) and GLUED (not so common!) shut. We wanted someone to check out the sills and make sure they weren't rotted...the house (all together now) hadn't been maintained in a long time.

So, we called the professionals.

The team, John, John Jr. and Frank, showed up and got busy taking out the windows!

Here we see John Jr. working in the window channel. But where is John? And where is Frank?

I know they were here...because this is their stuff. Are they hiding from my camera? They must be shy. I've heard Frank is very shy. Maybe that's it.

Here's John Jr. cutting new chains...

Hmmm. They WERE just here! Because they've already put some windows back in. And they are taking others back to the shop to be reglazed overnight. We had some lights with cracked and broken glass that we had temporarily repaired with, um, paper and masking tape.

And WOW! They put one of the rebuilt windows in! WAIT! I'll show the BEFORE picture first...let me dig it up. Nice how the A/C unit takes up most of the window, eh? That's because we can't CLOSE the window if we take it out. It's been chopped to approximately 7-8 inches high.

AFTER the new matched lower window has been put in...

And the old, chopped up window?

Well, maybe it can be...well...we don't know what it could be made into. Oh well.

Posted by jeanne on September 29, 2003 at 4:39 PM (4)

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