Painting the house seems like such an easy thing to do, but when you are fighting over 10 years of neglect on the part of the previous owner, it is a little more involved. As I mentioned before, the first thing I had to do to get ready for painting was addressing some landscaping issues that was causing the siding to rot. Once the landscaping was taken care of the next issue (pre-painting) was to replace a window. This lower level window fell victim to the previous landscaping being piled against the house. The window was totally rotted out. I knew the window was in bad shape when we moved in 2 1/2 years ago, but it got worse. The frame around the window and the window itself were so weak I could push my finger through them. We actually had a hole in the window that went to outside! Talk about not being green! Below are is the window before we took it out....trust me it is worse than it looks.
The removal of the old window went pretty easy. First we need to remove the casing and foundation shelf from the inside. We then cut back the sheet rock just far enough so we could see how the window was framed. Next we went outside and pulled the two layers of aluminum window wrap off of the rotting window frame (why do people try and cover gunshot wounds with band aids?). We then had to remove some of the exiting siding and trim pieces to gain access to the rest of the window. Then the window pretty much just broke apart with a hammer and pry bar. With as rotted as this window was, I am totally surprised it actually opened!
You can see in the last picture above, the window frame pretty much just broke apart. Now, since the new windows I bought are a little different in style and size, we had to make some small adjustments to the exiting framing. The new windows are about the same width as the old one but are a little shorter so they are not so close to the ground. The new windows are also two individual windows, not a custom one piece unit. Basically we had to remove the existing 6"x6" header and build a new bottom plate and reframe the center post and the end king studs. The header was the hardest part to tackle, we had to temporally support the existing header, saw out a piece in the middle to insert the center post, so we had something to support the house! We then just had to knock out the rest of the existing header. The bottom plate Dad constructed off site using some old pressure treating 2"x6" 's that he had under his deck. It was a perfect fit! The king studs we just had to move out about 2" or so and pretty much used the existing lumber. Now at the end of a day, we had all the framing totalling done and tarped off the window for the night.
The next day things went pretty easy, all the framing was done and we just needed to install the new windows. The new windows fit prefect and after we got them shimmed, nailed in, and taped we officially had a mostly weather tight house again! All we needed to do now is reinstall the siding. The siding on my house isn't being produced anymore, so since I changed the size of the window and had plenty of rotted siding in the area, Dad and I ended up having to make our own siding (which is going to be my next post). I'm going to fast-forward through the siding making and show off the finished window and a couple other areas we replaced the siding at.
Above you can see all the non-painted siding is siding that had to be replaced and that we made by hand. Almost all of the lowest boards going around this corner of the house had to be replaced due to the dirt being piled up against it. Anyway, I think the new windows turned out very well. It is nice having windows that have screens in them and that are way more efficient than before. I still need to finish some of the inside drywall and trim work, but that can wait until fall or winter. Now we can move onto to prepping for painting!
1 comments:
Having seen this improvement first hand, I can attest it is "top notch"!
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