Almost Frame-ous

I tore out all the rotten molding around this window, I tore out the rotten awning window at the bottom, I put in a new window and new molding, and I'm feeling pretty damned pleased with myself right about now.

The finishing touch was to caulk around the edges of the molding to try to keep the new wood safe from rot for a while.

I'll have to tear it all out again next summer to replace the single-pane windows, top and middle, but that's so far into the future it hurts to think about it. Right now I'm sitting fat, dumb and happy.

What I saw

I bought a new hand saw. I had to. I spent twenty minutes trying to rip half an inch off the width of a piece of brick molding with the trusty but old and dull hand saw that's been in my tool box for at least ten years, probably as much as fifteen. It's still a good saw, but now that I'm in my forties I can't keep flailing away as long as I could when I was thirty.

I stopped once about halfway through the cut and considered running to the store for a new saw right then, but we were trying to get as much done after supper as we could, and I was losing daylight fast. A trip to the store would take at least fifteen minutes, maybe as much as twenty or twenty-five, if I ran into a snag (and I always run into a snag), so I kept at it. Five more minutes passed and the kerf lengthened maybe an inch or two. When I stopped to catch my breath and get my strength back, I had to think about running to the store again.

No. I had to get something done tonight. I bent to the task and started again. The cut lengthened another inch. Now my arms were becoming numb. I had to think about each and every stroke to keep going. Finally I stopped cold, set the saw down, went inside to get the car keys, and bolted down the road toward the hardware store.

Fifteen minutes later I had a brand new, sharp saw. A saw so sharp I had to hold it back, or rather hold myself back. After pushing hard on the old saw, I had to adjust my technique to ease the new saw into the cut, guide it more carefully through the kerf, and, when I got a knuckle a little too close to the teeth, remember that this was not the older, more forgiving saw I'd been using for years.

I didn't have much daylight left, but in the short time I did have I managed to cut two lengths of brick molding and fit them around the window. Tomorrow I'll cut and fit the other two lengths and caulk around the whole window so it's finally sealed from the elements and I can take down the plastic sheet covering it once and for all.

Let the sun shine in

I finished framing the new window this afternoon and tacking the trim back in place. Except for staining, the inside is done. I think it might have been harder than tearing out the old window and installing the new one. All the trim's got to fit just right or it ends up looking really sloppy, as, I fear, it looks to some extent now, but if I may say so it's not too bad for my first window.

Still have to cut the brick molding to fit and nail it in place around the outside. I spent about a half-hour scraping hardened caulk and flaking paint away from the rough edges. I'll make a double-check tomorrow evening and start cutting some molding if I have time. Hope to have everything nailed up and caulked before the end of the week.

I can see clearly now

About two and a half months ago, I tore away the rotten molding around this window, thinking I would replace it in an afternoon. After exposing the awning window at the bottom and discovering it was rotting away, too, my afternoon project revealed itself to be no longer quick or cheap.

I put in an order for a new window shortly afterward. Owing to the odd size, there weren't a lot of choices to be had. I went with the Anderson window because it was the best one I could find and it cost only thirty dollars more than the cheapest I could find. In the meantime, I covered the window with heavy plastic sheeting to keep out the wind and rain, and waited. The window finally came from the factory week before last. You may be able to guess why I didn't install it last weekend.

Today was a pretty nice day for tearing a hole in the side of your house to install a window, cool and sunny with a fair breeze. I started by prying all the molding off the inside frame, but that didn't reveal a easy way to remove the old window, as I'd hoped it would. It fit so snugly into the rough opening that it betrayed no screw or nail fasteners, so I fell back on my tried and true method of deconstruction: I fetched my saw and started cutting. Five minutes later, the old window lay in pieces on the deck and I was poking the nozzle of the shop vac into the nooks and crannies to make a clean hole for the new window.

The new window's got a vinyl outer cover with flashing all around. I don't like the look of vinyl much, but if it keeps the weather out for years and years I suppose I can learn to live with it. The inside of the window's a nice blonde pine. I used pine furring strips to frame it up, too, even though we'll probably end up staining it to match the rest of the trim around the room.

I worked on installation until around four in the afternoon, when I called it quits on account of I wanted to sit on my butt for a while and blog. I hope to finish the framing and tack the molding back into place tomorrow.

Labor Day Scrape - Day Two

Can you tell which window I repaired? It's the one on the right. Sort of looks like I knew what I was doing, doesn't it?

B's hard at work scraping off the last of the paint globs still hanging on under the siding panels where the belt sander can't reach, no matter how many different ways I try to orient the thing.

Tomorrow I'm going to sand up to the two panels above the windows, then do what B's doing. If I can possibly manage to get all that done before Monday, we can have this primed before the long weekend's over.

Labor Day Scrape - Day Two

Water got in behind the woodwork in the lower corners, so the bottom three or four inches of the lumber that faced the elements were so rotten I had to cut it away and replace it.

The close quarters made it hard to cut. I could get the nose of my hand saw in just far enough to sort of nibble away at it, being careful not to cut into the vinyl window or the siding.

Most of the rot underneath was soft enough to easily remove with the corner of a scraping tool. A shop vac cranked all the way up to "Full Suck" was pretty good at cleaning out the deepest recesses.

Somebody tried to repair this corner before by pumping it full of expanding foam. I pulled most of it out making sure I got all the rotten wood.






All the woodwork in place, not yet caulked.

Labor Day Scrape - Day Two

I didn't mean to rip out the brick molding around this window today. The windows were going to be a project for another day, but when I climbed the ladder to scrape the paint off the panel just above, I found that the molding up there was soft and rotten, which made me climb down to check out the rotten molding I had already seen in the corners down there ...

I'm easily distracted. It's a flaw I've learned to live with by giving in occasionally, and I figured today it wouldn't matter much if I took a break from scraping to pry off the old brick molding, cut some new molding to fit and finish off this one window so I wouldn't lie awake during the next all-night rain shower, wondering how much water was getting in through the rot.

Brick molding is remarkably easy to remove; just set the foot of a wrecking bar against the edge where you know there's a gap, tap it into the gap with a hammer, then lean back and let the bar lever it away from the house. Wrecking bars are so monstrously useful that I have two. When I pried the gap open with the first, I slipped the foot of the other wrecking bar in above it, leaned back again to open the gap further, pulled the first bar out and repositioned it above the second, and kept walking right up the window like that until the whole length of lumber came away. Easy-peasy.

I'm always a little amazed at how a house is pieced together like a puzzle you can take apart. Figure out how to get new pieces and maintenance is fairly simple.

I'm also amazed when B lets me do stuff like this. She was standing just an arm's length away as I worked. Every time I start a project that involves levering pieces of lumber off the house I half-expect her to place her mortal body between me and the house, stand arms akimbo and demand to know what the hell I was thinking of doing. Somehow, I've got her buffaloed into believing I know how to make these repairs, when the fact my method is to pull things off, take a good look at the parts and try to cipher out how I could fix up new parts that would fit together in more or less the same way. It seems likely that, one of these days, I'll pull off a part I can't replace, but it hasn't happened yet. Knock wood.