Glass Replacement Project

9:25AM: Today, I am working on rectifying a problem with this kitchen window.

While scraping off the old paint, we came to realize that the glass pane in the bottom section of the window is too small. There is a quarter inch gap on the end that was covered by glazing. The height of the glass barely meets the grill (mullion) at the top.

We decided to make it right and get a new piece of glass for the space. So that’s my main project today. I picked up the new glass yesterday and now I need to go out and remove all the glazing and points so I can remove the old glass.

10:45AM: The glass is in. It took me about 45 minutes to get all the old glazing out of the sill channels where the glass goes. Susan and I worked on both sides of the window to get it all cleaned up. Once everything was properly loosened up. The old glass pane slid right out.

Installing the new glass went very smoothly and it fit as well as I can expect in a hundred year old house. Nothing is square. I have several points in place and I think I’ll wait a little bit before I glaze it. 

By the way, I have discovered glazing compound that comes in a tube that I can apply with a caulking gun. It goes much faster and I think the final results are much better, much smoother looking. In short, more professional!

2:20PM: The glazing is done and the Glass Replacement Project has been completed.

I also spent time on scraping the above window that looks out on the deck. I shall say again that it is slow and tedious but I have nothing but time.

Zags Make the Eight & Midnight Guy

We have just returned from watching the Gonzaga Bulldogs Men’s Basketball Team advance to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament. They had a come from behind win over UCLA and it was quite a heart pounding game.

We are home now and I am going to bed.

Later: I just chased away a guy knocking at our back door.

I was in bed when Susan came running up and said someone was at the back door. I threw on my robe and came down and pulled the curtain back that looks out on the back stoop. The guy was in his mid to late 20’s and complaining that it was cold. He seemed distraught and unhappy. I told him I didn’t know who he was and I wasn’t going to let him in. I told him to leave and he did.

It didn’t seem like a very Christian way to behave as he seemed mostly harmless, but I’m not going to let some unknown person into the house late at night when I’m in my robe and armed with only a bat. (Didn’t have time to grab the gun.)

This all happened at about 11:30.

Livin’ with Leaves

Spring is coming and the proof of that is the weather we’ve been having the last couple of days. We decided to take time off working on the kitchen to rake some leaves.

We had an early snow last Fall and had not raked up any leaves because they had not fallen. Then we get several inches of snow and everything comes down. Leaves, branches, shrubbery…it was ugly. You can refer to my posts starting on November 7th for a recap.

So we finally had a chance to get out in the yard and rake up the thick, wet, matted leaves. Over the last two days, we delivered 720 pounds of leaves to the dump. We are totally wiped out. I kind of re-injured  my left arm while lifting garbage cans of leaves into the bed of the truck.  Susan has a sore arm and a sore back.

But, we got it done and the yard looks like it might return.

So it’s back to the kitchen.

Down Draft Ducting Day

I woke up to another blanket of snow. Not sure how much we’re going to get but it is still coming down.

Today is the day we are installing the ducting for the downdraft fan. And when I say “we”, I mean Carter from Anderson Sheet Metal. It’s 7:45 AM and Carter is already down in the crawl space getting to work.

8:13AM: Here’s the first accomplishment, the vent.

He asked if I wanted brown or white for the vent cover. I obviously chose white because I thought it would be easier to paint with the dark green trim color. Now that I see it in place, I like it as is.

Here are a few more pictures of the process.

Carter is really cruising along.  He’s finished under the house and is installing the last pieces of duct pipe.

Yesterday I went into the crawl space to knock the glass out of this window. That is to be the route of the fan duct. Here is how it looks now.

9:17AM: Carter is finished. He will be returning in a couple of weeks to install the fan. That will mean, cabinets are going in. I just hope I'm not being too optimistic about that time line.

Here are my final pictures of the install.

It is still snowing.

Paint Scraping Tips

While Susan continues to mud and sand the walls, I have moved on from drywall to paint scraping. Susan wants to paint the windows the color of the cabinets. but they have been painted over so many times and so sloppily, the trim and mullions have lost all their detail.

We are bringing the detail back by pain stakingly removing the paint right down to the wood. The heat gun is an amazing tool for this however I found another way to easily remove paint.

You must remove the trim, trying not to destroy it in the process. Then you put it out on the deck for about three weeks and make sure the trim gets rained on and snowed on and is exposed to all the weather that winter has to throw at it.

When you bring them back inside and let them dry for a day or two, the paint becomes remarkably brittle and cracks away from the wood. All you need is a good putty knife to scrape away the loose paint. What remains you can easily take off with the heat gun.

I completed one whole set of window trim today. Pretty good!

Drywall Doneness

I am going out on a limb here and declaring the end of dry walling.

There might be little patch jobs here and there but I really think I've gotten everything.

Susan is mudding and taping now and hopefully, she'll be finished within a day or two. We still have a bunch of windows to scrape.

I however, m taking the rest of the day off to get caught up on a cartooning job I'm working on.