sponge worthy

I've been saving some pieces of foam from old packages -- my idea to help stop the draftiness in my windows was to cut these to size and slip them in the groove between the sash meeting point and the parting bead. It's an impermanent solution as is, but it seems to work pretty well. I cut down the draftiness big time with just this little trick so I know I'm on the right track. If the Easy Stop doesn't work I'm thinking of doing a McGuyver and gluing these to the bead. I think they would be fairly durable. We'll see..

window insulation

With old man winter beginning to wake up from his slumber, I've been thinking alot about insulation for my windows, particularly the upstairs bedrooms. Currently I'm working on restoring the two side windows in my daughter's room. Since I can't just squirrel these away for a few weeks and work on them full on, the progress is slow. I'm just about halfway done with both of these. What's different about these windows is I did these the "correct" way. That is, removing old glaze then pulling out the glass to clean it. Sand the rabbet (the groove the glass rests in), then reinstall on a bed of silicone. Prime it, glaze it, paint it. So yeah, it's a thing of patience. My window of opportunity is closing (pun intended) so need to finish these up for the season.

The whole point to fixing these windows aside from the whole restoration thing is to make them airtight. Drafty windows suck -- despite their beauty, my wood sashes need some tightening up. The glass on these two windows was barely hanging on. Honestly I don't know how they didn't just fall out with our spring winds. I fixed the glass firmly in place and added some expanding foam in the crevices to the rear of the sill, then caulked the windows. But the windows were still draftier than I expected. A big reason for this is the gap along the parting bead where the upper and lower sash meet. See below.

I estimate I can eliminate 50 to 60 percent of the problem by fixing that gap. But what to use? I've been reading up on This Old House on how to tighten up old windows and one thing I've come across is the Easy Stop system. I'm very interested in that it just doesn't have some silicone strip you put on the bottom and top sash, but a replacement parting bead with insulation built in. I will be investigating this further and have ordered me a sample kit to see if it'll work for me.

In the above picture you'll notice the edge of a metal strip the sash rides on. You may recall I've referred to this stuff as sash rail. I'm not sure if it is original to the house but it does seem to be an attempt at insulation. Of course the bottom part of the sash has a groove that's pretty tight, but the upper part where the sash cord rests in has a significantly wider channel. It's here where we have a problem with air penetration. I'm not sure the Easy Stop will totally fix this (seems like a big gap), but I'm hoping it will. In the meantime I have a temporary solution to help stop the chill this winter..

the attic

Up until a few months ago I'd never had the guts or inclination to venture up into my attic. It's not exactly easy to get into. The access hatch is in the guest bedroom closet and takes some contortion to lift from the ladder and into an angle with which you can pull yourself up & over. I wasn't really sure what to expect -- hidden treasure, a corpse? The possibilities were endless.

The air was thick with a very fine dust so I'm glad I strapped on the dust mask before my ascent. The reason why I went up there in the first place is we had a few big rainstorms in the fall and I noticed water dripping in from the ceiling in the guest bedroom. Didn't want to, but I knew I had to go check it out. A few things surprised me. One, there's insulation up there. I question it's R value, but I figure it's probably better than nothing. Looks like blown in cellulose. There had once been vines crawling up the exterior walls and I found evidence of them up there too. There must be quite a few breaches in the exterior armor that allowed this stuff to get in there. The old duct work from the evaporative AC unit was still intact save for quite a bit of rust on the piece connecting to the outside.

Check out all that water damage. When the HVAC guys installed the new system and removed the old one from the roof they didn't do a good patch job. The claims adjuster also found extensive hail damage from early this year. Luckily my insurance is going to cover the cost for a new roof. I'm super excited. That's one major project we'll be able to scratch off the list several years earlier than we were hoping for. This rocks. More updates in a few weeks...

pic of the day

franklin mountains state park

swanky curtain rods

One of the original reasons for fixing up the windows in this room is so I could finally put up some worthy curtain rods. As you can see in the pic above, come afternoon sun this room can really heat up. In summertime it becomes a blazing inferno. Thus the need to diffuse the light coming into the dining room. You can't see it here, but we actually put up a faux stained glass sheet over the big middle window. This helped bring down temperatures in this room big time. But there was always a need to put up some curtains over these windows both from a heat control standpoint and for privacy. Since these are in the back of the house, I guess heat control won out.. It's been five years that we've lived in this house and we still don't have curtains up downstairs -- these will be the first. I still have the other set of windows in the dining room to overhaul before dressing them up. Then we can finally go for the ones in the living room.

Ok enough with the backstory. I've had my eye on this set of curtain rods since we bought the place. We actually have a pair of the same style in the upstairs bedrooms with a nice oil rubbed bronze finish. I always wanted brass for the formal rooms though. As you can see they are a nice and shiny brass, which I'm not really a fan of. However these are unlacquered so over time will patina to a nice aged brass and match the rest of the brass hardware downstairs. They are nice and beefy though and are pretty heavy. Hopefully a future owner doesn't think they need to toss them as they were somewhat pricey. In fact, my wife has taken to calling them the $XXX curtain rods. I won't divulge how much they cost, but they weren't cheap. Let's leave it at that.

Something else that left a bad taste in my mouth is rejuvenation kept getting my order wrong. I ordered these way back in july and only now do I have the complete set I ordered. I know, I know.. The first time I got one mismatched set of finials. The second time I got my brass finials except they were lacquered. Third time's the charm I guess, as I now finally have all hardware in unlacquered brass. I wasn't too happy about that, but dammit I wanted these rods. It's taken forever, but I am finally content with my dining room windows. Helps give me a little motivation that I can actually finish a project and am not completely crazy refinishing all this wood..

dining room windows saga continues

Wow it's been a while since I've posted anything resembling progress around here. Not to worry, I've been working on several projects. This would be my first blog worthy post in a while. As you can see above I've finally completed the far wall of windows and woodwork in my dining room. It's not a good picture since the light blasts through this room and it's hard to not wash out the detail. I actually sanded down, filled, stained, & poly'd a fairly significant part of this wall. The good thing is I think it's kind of hard to tell what was pseudo-original and the work I just did. I guess that's kinda the point -- I want it to look like it's always been that way.

Let's see, I completely redid the wood trim that spans over the top of all three windows as well as the upper/lower sash of the right window. I partially redid the left window sash and the center window. I also did some touch up on some of the lower trim underneath the windows. I refinished both window sills too. Thankfully I was able to match the color of the stain pretty well. I would call the stain color I'm going for something like an amber caramel. It has some orange-red tones, but the caramel richness helps keep it from looking too bright and light colored. After I put on the second coat of poly did I finally say to myself "wow, that looks pretty nice". I think so at least. It's not perfect, but I think it is so much better than what it used to look like. I can't believe I've been working on this wall for this long. Yes I've been distracted with other things along the way, but for the most part I've been working these off and on since july.

I'm hoping to get started on the trio of windows on the side wall next. Like these, the window sills are crap and need total refinishing as well as a few spots where old curtain rods used to be. There is some rot on the same places as the ones I just fixed, mostly the detail edge of the sash where it meets glass. To help make the back windows bulletproof from any future abuse, I used the same methods for the exterior of applying wood preservative, wood hardener, & epoxy/filler. The color is a little darker and redder than the rest of the stain, but I felt this was a worthy compromise. So like the back windows, I want the side windows completely solid inside and out. Hopefully a future owner of this house appreciates the work I've put into them and doesn't toss them out for some cheap vinyl..

Anywho, here's another picture that shows the three finishes in all their glory. The top finish is the despised ebony stain (which I'm still working on eradicating). The middle finish is the new stain/poly. And the bottom finish is the pseudo-original finish. I think the bottom two are pretty close and I don't think you'd really be able to tell they're not the same finish unless you got right up to them in certain areas. The sash detail that touches the glass is mostly the only place this is most obvious. There's more to the story so you'll have to wait till next time..

death of skunk tree

What is this thing? I've seen these trees all over this area and as far north as denver. What I do know is they grow ridiculously fast and are extremely invasive. They also have a very pungent stink when you rub against the trunk or leaves. Hence the name, skunk tree. This one grew to about 15ft tall in 2 years. I knocked it down though -- I got me a new tree and the perfect spot for it was where this skunk tree was standing.

I don't think el paso is usually thought of as a place to grow citrus trees. It's not common, but I do see it every once in a while. Just down the street from me is an orange tree tucked in between two houses. I'm trying a similar strategy. This one is a mexican lime tree and I'm super excited to put it to good use. Time to make some guacamole.. Mmm.