Window Rot - Or How I learned to stop worrying and love the heat gun...

This weekend kicked off "rotpick-fest 2005"; meaning we started pulling out our windows and picking out the rotted areas on them and their corresponding window sills. Was it fun? Sorta. I mean, there's something entertaining about giving your windows what amounts to a big chemical peel.

And dear lord, the satisfaction of watching the paint bubble up into big soft blisters under the glare of the heatgun...dude that's just cool. (P.S. no matter how hard you try to avoid touching the hot part of the gun...no matter how many times you run the mantra "it's hot" through your head while working...you WILL burn yourself at least minorly, at least once...it does not reflect on your intelligence.)


We got 2 windows (of 14) started this weekend. We started with the push-out casement windows and will work our way around the house to the double-hungs. We're gouging, sealing, epoxy sculpting, painting, rehanging, weather-stripping, and hardware repairing. It will not be a small task but i'm so anxious to have house openings that actually open as the hot weather approaches.

I'm also psyched to have the wood stripped so it can be repainted sans annoying, sloppy glops. (Are we kidding with the drippy paint? Did 3rd graders paint our trim? and our windows shut for that matter?) That's right. We're stripping and REPAINTING. We like the white trim. blah blah gorgeous wood...i dont want to hear about it. It brightens the place up. And turns out, frequenly little budget bungalows werent done up in fine mahoganies and oaks but in mere paint grades. Our house is one of these. If the next h.o. wants to strip it off though, they owe us a box of krispy kremes for leaving them with substantially fewer layers of paint to slog through.

Cant wait to play more with that heat gun. You can bend PVC with it!!!!

posted by merideth @ 5/24/2005 03:36:00 PM 13 comments

Further adventures in homeowning

So it turns out that not every weekend is devoted to the joys of house restoration. Some weekends...some friday mornings in fact...are devoted to cursing the kitchen faucet which can't possibley have decided to actually, physically break and no longer turn on water. but oh yes it can. Some freakin metal piece broke off. Broke right off. Fortunately beth is all feeling that the underside of the kitchen sink is her domain now. So after trying to repair the hateful faucet thing only to find that, despite new cartridge, O rings, grease, and sealant it preferred to spurt annoyingly from the base, she installed a brand new faucet and sprayer. The current one is certainly not the final one. Not the lovely goose-necked thing we'll install when we reno the kitchen counters and sink. But it IS a delight of basic chrome whose sprayer works beautifully, tap flows strongly, and yes, whose handle turns both on and off and AND hot and cold without one's throwing one's full body weight against it for torque.

posted by merideth @ 5/02/2005 09:00:00 PM 2 comments