backyard tuneup pt1

So as I alluded to earlier -- we have some backyard stuff to do. Some are upgrades I've been putting off for a while, others are re-do's. Apparently the stuff I planted a year ago didn't last too long as my dogs slowly ate them. No I'm not kidding. The added stress of summer temps didn't help either. I've tried resurrecting the planting beds several times, but for some reason or another they don't last in the eye candy department. A big reason is my dogs -- looks like they're going to be spending more time indoors. I don't care to revisit this again. Ahem.

A big thing I've been meaning to get to is repointing the rock wall at the rear of the yard, adjacent to the alley. If you'll recall when I did this the first time around, we set up a neat planting bed running along a third or so of this wall. This was all smoke and mirrors at the time as I knew the wall was in no shape to take the added deterioration from draining water. I'm not exaggerating here, there really wasn't much holding much of this back wall together other than gravity. I also never liked how the retaining wall was somewhat unstable as it wasn't able to interlock. The bottom was perfectly flat, but the tops had a rough cut stone finish. So after several courses there were certain rows that didn't really feel solid even after cherry picking them to fit well.

So we took down the retaining wall, and the entire rear wall was repointed with fresh cement on both sides. They popped in some PVC "weep holes" to allow for water drainage as well. The pseudo stone blocks were then re-stacked with a little mortar to hold them together. You'll have to wait till next time to see the finished product.

guest room windows, day6

Guest room windows -- done.

Oh yeah that has a nice ring to it. The extra time I put into cleaning up the sashes paid off. I think these came out looking really good. It's hard to get a feel for the actual color of the stain in this room for some reason. The sunlight is blinding in here during the day so you can only really appreciate the color when it's overcast or in late afternoon. Taking pictures during the day was almost impossible as they look darker than they actually are. I took most of these at night instead. It's closer to actual color, but you'll just have to take my word for it. They look sweet. Still need to clean the glass..

This pic was taken during the day and is a much better representation of the stain color. Dare I think about stripping the doors next? Hmm..

guest room windows, day5

Ok back to the windows in the guest room. As we saw in the last post the window casing had been installed but was still in need of refinishing. The plan originally was to just do the basic work of getting these operational with casing and I would finish them off. But after my wife's insistence, we decided to just do the whole shebang all at once. So the stain was next. This is the same Sherwin Williams stain I've been using in other parts of the house, Warm Chestnut. It's the closest match I've found to the original finish in the house. So far I've used the stain when I refinished the kitchen stairs (pre-blog) and the front door.

This actually looks a bit darker than my front door but closer to the finish I was going for with the back stairs. It looks a little darker than it came out as these got touched up a bit along the way. They got hit with some light sanding to even out the color as I wanted to still have the color of the grain very prominent. As you can see the actual sash is still in a rough state. As usual, my plan was to do these at a later point but I decided to burn the midnight oil and get these prepped so we could stain and poly all at once. I think I put about 8 hours into picking out the little flecks of white paint on these babies. You'll have to wait til next time to see the finished product. :)

rear office windows

Oh yes, they look good don't they? Don't get too excited -- it's mostly cosmetic. Kinda like I did on the first floor they're still nonfunctional. The plan is to get all the windows in the office totally restored. We still have the other three that are in horrid shape. However that will wait a bit. Not sure if we'll do this room next as we'll completely inconvenience ourselves for a week or two while the workers shut the door and have at it. In the meantime the rear view will look purty from a distance.

But really, they're already scraped and sanded. They got reglazed too. All it'd take to call these done is to unstick them and rehang the sash chain. So they're maybe 85% done. But that'll be our little secret. There's been a lot going on around here -- most of it blog worthy. Hang tight, I have a few more updates. Stay tuned.

guest room windows, day4

More progress updates from the guest room window restoration. As you can see above, the sills needed work. This is actually a 1" strip of concrete that meets the slight incline of the sill and joins it to the wooden sill just above. I'm not sure if they meant to do it this way or they miscalculated the angles of the concrete sill when they were building the house, and fixed it with the concrete strip. Either way, these areas are definitely showing their age. I happily ignored this issue when I did the first set of windows on the rear of the house 2-3 years ago. But we obviously need a permanent solution here.

My contractor suggested yanking the ones that were falling apart and replacing with a piece of quarter round. We filled the cavity with some expanding foam to minimize drafts, caulked & painted. You can see one in progress in the below pic. Don't worry -- we're on the home stretch here. Note stain on interior sill.. :)

guest room windows, day3

Once the sash was ready to go, they were ready to be mounted back in their rightful places. They were strung back up with some new sash cord and we were finally able to have a house that didn't look like it was under construction again. With the windows in place, it was time to mill some lumber into exact reproductions of the window casing. Finally this room was starting to look like a 100 year old room again. And from the outside, the exterior framing was able to be caulked and painted. The glass needs a good cleaning from glaze residue, but they are really looking good.

guest room windows, day2

Unfortunately I dropped the ball for a day or two when the windows were laying around in various stages. The glazing had to dry over a few days, then the primer, then final paint. Since these were going to be fully operational, the exterior framing and sash had to be painted and dried independently. The only photographic evidence I have is from the exterior. The paint from the office windows was very brittle and super easy to get off. It's funny we're going for the angle of the house no one really sees, but this is really where the most damage was. We're also hosting a party in a few weeks and it was a priority to get the back view looking good. That includes, yes, my landscaping. More on that later. :)