In case you were wondering.

(wink)

I got to put my rope skills to good use replacing one of the sash cords on my window.

The weights were neatly tucked away in their pocket. The remaining old sash cord was still attached to the fallen weight.

It’s really important to tie this specific knot when you’re putting new sash cord on a weight. It won’t slip over time and come undone. It only gets tighter.

Here’s what a new bundle of sash cord looks like. My windows take medium gauge but there is lighter gauge too. Remember that if you have rounded pulleys you must use rope and if your pulleys have a flat rolling surface, you can use chains.

Now, my original plan was to fish the end of the rope down through the pulley, let it drop down into the weight cavity, and tie it onto the weight. But when I tried that the end of the cord kept getting caught on some of the plaster keys and I couldn’t force it down the cavity far enough to grab it. I decided to use a snake to pull it up from below because that would give me a firmer guide.

Here’s my wiring snake with a bit of yarn tied on the end that I would attach to the end of the sash cord.

Yet another tricky thing about this project was that the pulley had a slope on the inside. It didn’t just open through to the weight cavity, it had an extended piece that sloped down in the same direction as the rope would go, presumably to help prevent drafts coming in around the rope. Unfortunately, this made the hole JUST the right size for the rope and nothing more. It was a tight squeeze but I got the snake through and the end of the sash cord fit just right.

I measured it to be about the same length as the one next to it and tied it off. I left some extra on the end so I’ll have something to work with if the knot needs to be adjusted when I put the sash back in.

Hmmm… now what else can I tie with sash cord?

I wanted to make sure I removed all the paint from the inside of the parting bead because the moving window sashes would eventually break away the paint and release lead into the home in years to come. I was surprised how much I had missed when I finally pulled out my mirror to take a look.

One more round of chemical stripping, coming right up!

In the case of my window restoration project I kept running into setbacks with the hardware and the fact that I got bored sanding by hand. I decided I’d just have to suck it up about the sanding but the hardware was a tougher problem.

Like everything else in our house that shouldn’t have been painted the window hardware was all painted over. I used the handy dandy ammonia trick as seen in this post but the paint was hard to get out of the moving parts.

I soaked them too long and they rusted.

So I got hung up on how to fix the hardware. Finally, I just said, “You know what? I can get new hardware that looks like old hardware for the same amount as it would take to restore the old hardware.” Block dissolved.

Don’t worry, preservationists, I’m going to pack the old hardware away for any future rehabbers who want to take on the task. But as I looked through the rest of the hardware on the windows around my house, I noticed a few have missing pieces anyway. I might as well make them all match.

So with that block out of the way I continued working on the window frame I’m prepping.

I wanted to make sure and remove all the lead paint from the areas that will have moving parts, so I used Zinsser 5-layer chemical strip and then sanded the last bits of residue off. I followed each pass with the sandpaper with a wipe down with a wet cloth so the dust wouldn’t be airborne. I wore a mask and dusted the rest of the room with a damp cloth afterward too.

The frames are looking pretty good now!

Next up: replacing a broken sash cord and the benefits of being a girl home rehabber!

Do you ever find yourself losing motivation mid-project? Find yourself staring at the window frame you’ve been meaning to sand for six months and just can’t bring yourself to pick up the sandpaper? Do you find yourself stymied by that one little distasteful part of a project and seek out every possible distraction to feel like you have an excuse for not finishing it?

I’m going to call it Rehabber’s Block and I must confess I’ve got a pretty bad case.

I’ve gotten lots done around the house this summer. Planted a rose garden, reclaimed some weed-ridden patches in the back yard, found some great baseboards to replace the ones my bathroom is missing… but the one project I really need to finish sits idle. I just can’t get myself motivated to do it.

If you’ve faced this problem, what got you past it? Send me your stories and suggestions. I’m floundering here and I need to get back to work!

Blocked and bewildered,

Kelli

I took some video of our tour. It’s about 40 minutes long, so pause the player and give it time to buffer. If you have a Vimeo log in you can also download the video to watch on your own computer, which may fix the buffering problem.

Des Moines Rehabbers Club Meeting April 2011 from Kelli Griffis on Vimeo.

The grand entrance, which faces 21st St., features this beautiful tile floor:

The grand staircase flanks one side of the foyer:

Ornate, hand-carved newell post:

We started our tour in the receiving parlor. Here’s Aaron telling us about the history of the house. To his left is Michael. The room behind Michael was the original dining room.

Here’s the rest of the crowd.

The room behind the group is known as the library and has the most ornate crown molding in the house. It seems to be made of plaster and to have been cast and painted on the ground and then mounted to the walls in pieces.

The decoration seems to include some Arabic calligraphy script, which I’m seeking help in understanding. If anybody out there can read Arabic calligraphy and tell us what this says, I’d be truly grateful!

From the main foyer, pocket doors open to the formal parlor:

The formal parlor includes this gorgeous fireplace:

Pocket doors lead from the formal parlor to the receiving parlor and on through to the dining room. We speculated that another set of pocket doors would have led to the dining room.

The original kitchen was dismantled and a new modern kitchen is on the second floor. Aaron and Michael plan to restore a full size kitchen to the main floor. An original bathroom does survive, though, and it has some beautiful tile details.

The second floor shows off this beautiful curved hallway that lets in the light from the tall stained glass windows.

Five bedrooms and a servant’s apartment at the back make up the second floor.

This would have been quarters for the servants. The doorway on the right in the background is a pass-through closet to another room and includes a built in dresser.

A very small sun room was added on in the 1960s with a small addition. We speculated this was originally an open air porch that was later enclosed. It is only about 4 and a half feet tall.

This doorway goes back to what is now a modern kitchen. It includes two linen closets, which leads us to believe it was part of the servants’ area where they lived and cared for the family’s linens.

Next up was the third floor. Originally a ballroom, it later became the casket showroom for the funeral home and the area to the left of the stairs was the embalming room.

This unusual antique ceiling fan is on the third floor. I didn’t hear whether Aaron said this was original to the house or simply period appropriate.

From there we ventured outside and got a good side view of the house:

We talked about landscaping questions, including the unique challenge of having nearly an acre of parking lot.

One of Aaron’s questions was what to do with the sign. Some people suggested removing it and using the existing electrical wiring to run a fountain.

The brick driveway is a feature Aaron wants to restore and use, but part of it is covered by concrete. The part in the photograph is an example of some interesting ways to fit bricks together around a round driveway.

Next up we looked at the carriage house.

It has the original brick floor…

…and is a treasure trove of historic artifacts, including this unique piece of plumbing fixture. People had all kinds of speculations about this one. Is it a sitz bath? A tub specifically for bathing infants and children? Something specific to the funeral home business? You tell me. Leave a comment and tell me what you think.

A close-up of the knobs:

A small side staircase led to the carriage house apartment where the stable hands and carriage driver would have lived.

The place was in bad shape but we could all see the potential for a really cool living space or artist’s studio or something here.

It felt like entering a time capsule where nothing had been touched for a hundred years.

They found trunks full of old papers and letters, as well as some remnants of household items.

You could almost imagine a small team of horses grazing outside the window there.

That concluded our tour. Aaron and Michael have a beautiful home and lots of enthusiasm about bringing it up to its full potential. Thanks a million to both of them for sharing their home’s story with us. We’ll be checking back to find out how things are going.

I successfully glazed three large single pane windows with no problems. But put a single five light window in front of me and something’s bound to go awry.

Here’s the window sash, all prepped and ready to go.

Linseed oil… good, good…

Putty worms, sticking nicely…

Lovely bed of putty for the pane of glass…

First pane goes in, so far so good…

Time for the second pane…

And… D’OH!

There was hairline crack in the glass and when I pushed it into the putty it broke.

Sadness…

The good news, though, is that now I’ll get to take a trip to Miller’s and show you their cool glass cutting machine! I’ll try and take a video to show you. It’s just the coolest thing!

Check back again soon for more progress!

In my last post (A Spa for Window Sashes) I stained the window sashes and prepped them to start putting the glass panes back in. That process is called glazing, hence my stupid donut joke.

But really, glazed donuts are my favorite.

To further prep the wood I applied a 50/50 mix of linseed oil and mineral spirits.

Only mix up as much as you’re going to use at a time. I used an old candy bucket.

Linseed oil something I wasn’t familiar with until recently. But I’ve since learned that it is sort of a natural primer for wood. It helps seal the wood cells and strengthen the surface of the wood a bit. It adds a slightly golden color to raw wood, and once the excess is wiped down and absorbed leaves a nice natural surface. Because it is a natural oil, it may need reapplication on exposed surfaces and is not recommended for use on things like chairs. Sitting on it might let it absorb into clothes.

It’s the ideal product to use on certain parts of a window because it helps create a seal against moisture and allows moving edges of a window to slide against the frame without gumming up like paint would. Additionally, linseed oil is one of the components of glazing putty and it’s the part that helps it oxidize and harden.

I applied a thin coat of linseed oil/mineral spirits to the inside of the sash where the putty would go. I let it soak in for about five minutes and then wiped off the excess that hadn’t been absorbed by the wood. I went ahead and applied it to the whole window sash. It can be primed over again later with oil based sealant and I figured it would help condition the wood in the meantime. (The sash looks uneven and blotchy because I only stained the side that would face inward. The outside is going to be painted with white oil based primer so I didn’t bother staining it.)

Now I have to confess to a part of this process I did against the advice of all the experts I’ve talked to. Everyone I’ve spoken to has said that the Dap 33 brand of glazing compound is no good. (“Dap is crap!” is how Bob Yapp put it at his workshop.) But Dap is inexpensive and easily available. I’m using Dap on my project, but I am doing so with the understanding that 1) my windows will be protected behind very good quality storm windows, and 2) I’m going to take great care to make sure the remaining sealing steps get done really well to make the best seal possible. I’m fully aware that the experts recommend a product by Abatron, and if I had my way, I’d do every last thing according to the experts. This is one of those corners I’m going to have to cut, but hopefully I can do it with a little care so that the results won’t be drastically different from the good stuff.

When I bought my first can of Dap, I opened it up and pulled out a golf ball sized wad of it. Some of the oil had separated out of it, so I started kneading it to reincorporate it. But it was so sticky it soon coated my hands and was impossible to work with. In frustration I scraped off what I could and dunked my hands in a small can of mineral spirits to wash it off.

When I was a kid my dad was a baker. I remembered that when he was showing me how to knead bread that was too sticky, he floured his hands first and worked some of the flour into the dough until it was the right consistency. I read somewhere that plaster dust could be added to glazing compound to make it more workable, so I took a tip from the bakery and dusted my hands and my worktable with some plaster patching compound.

With my hands coated with plaster dust, the glazing compound worked into a soft, malleable ball.

I kept a small cup full of plaster dust handy as I worked and re-dusted my hands any time the glazing got too sticky. It made the whole job so much easier.

The first step in setting the glass back in a window is to lay a nice soft bed for it. To do this I pulled a quarter sized ball of glazing putty, rolled it out into a worm, and smooshed it into the rabbet. (That’s another cool word I learned! The notched out ledge where the glass will rest is called the rabbet.)

On a large single pane window, the glass actually slides into a slot at the top of the sash and then rests on the other three rabbeted sides. To create a good seal and give the glass an evenly cushioned set, I squeezed some putty into the slot where the top of the glass would go. I also took care to squeeze putty firmly into the corner.

Here you can see putty going into the slot and squeezed in along the rabbet.

All the sides of the sash had putty now, so it was time to set the glass in its nice soft bed.

It’s a little hard to see in this next photo, but I put the top edge of the glass into the slot at the top first and pushed it in hard enough to squish some of the putty out and around the edge of the glass. That gave enough clearance to get the bottom of the glass past the edge of the sash.

Here’s the other corner of the top. You can see the glass is snugly in the slot and putty is squishing out around it.

As I set the rest of the glass down gently into the putty I pressed firmly but carefully to get a good seal between the front of the glass and the front of the window. A lot of putty will squish out, but don’t worry, that will get trimmed off later and you can most likely reuse it on the next window.

Now at the glass was evenly set in the bed of putty, it was time to put in the glazing points. You’ll remember from a previous post that glazing points are little metal pieces that hold the glass in place while you’re glazing. They come in two common shapes: triangles, which require a special application gun, and tabbed points, which can be applied using a screwdriver or putty knife. I found both kinds when I was disassembling my windows and I bought the tabbed kind.

With a rocking motion, I wiggled glazing points into the wood about 8 inches apart on the three sides of the window that weren’t the slotted side.

Next I repeated the part where I made a ball of putty, rolled it out into a slightly fatter worm, and smooshed it into the groove around the window. Don’t be afraid of putting too much putty on. It’s better to have too much than too little and the excess will get removed as you use your putty knife like I’m going to show you.

I used a bent knife because it’s easier to get the 45 degree angle that allowed me to put enough pressure on the putty to really get it squeezed in tightly. Once I had a good thick layer of putty on, I pressed my knife into it an inch at a time, squeezing and compacting it into the crevice between the wood and the glass.

The excess putty collected on the back of my knife. I took that off and made a ball of it to continue using it as I went around the rest of the window.

All that pressing with the knife left a bumpy pattern.

So I turned my knife the long way and ran it down the edge at a 45 degree angle to smooth the surface and remove more excess putty.

I carefully removed the line of excess that got squeezed off the edge.

And voila! I had a lovely straight sealed edge. It looks a little messy because I still hadn’t scraped the excess off the other side yet.

I had to smooth the corners down with my fingers. The goal is to make sure there aren’t any cracks or pockets where water can get trapped.

When I was finished with all the sides I stood the window up and scraped the excess putty that got squeezed through the front.

Ta-da! The finished product. Well, at least finished with glazing.

Now to put the finished sashes in a warm dry room and wait a couple of weeks. One way Dap is inferior to other glazing compounds is that it takes a really long time to harden a skin. Since linseed oil is supposed to help it oxidize, I’ll brush a thin layer of it over the glazing. Apparently, it can take four weeks or more to really harden, though I’ve heard of instances where months after glazing, it was still rather soft. Painting over the glazing will slow down the hardening, so I’ll put off that part as long as I can.

I’ll post some more pictures soon of the 5-light sashes. The process is pretty much the same, minus the slot at the top. A bit more time consuming. But now that I’ve got the hang of it, it’s all going much faster. Can’t wait to put these beautiful windows back in the frames!

I sanded them….

And they looked brand new!

It was time to start staining them. With the collection of substances I had to wipe on and wipe off I felt like I was running some kind of window sash spa. Cleaners, moisturizers, colors… maybe I was just wishing I could be at a spa myself. Anyway, I first wiped the sashes down with mineral spirits, then used Pre-Stain wood conditioner. The Pre-Stain is optional, but recommended for softer woods. My windows are some kind of fir or pine, so definitely a soft wood. Then I used the Red Oak color of Minwax wood stain to match my existing woodwork.

Here they are with the Pre-Stain:

Here’s what it looked like mid-staining:

I laid them out on plastic while I waited the 15 minutes for the stain to soak in.

Here are the first sashes stained:

Here are some stained and some not yet stained:

And all six sashes stained:

Next up: Replacing the glass! Check back soon and we’ll get to glazing!

I hope to do a more full-length post about Shull’s, but in case anyone needs to know, here are the basics: Shull’s is a furniture refinishing business in Valley Junction and they are the go-to place for having large things stripped of paint quickly and easily. From what I understand they have a large tank of chemicals and they submerge items to have the paint stripped off. Apparently they can do whole doors, and possibly larger items. Anyway, they had six sashes done for me within a day or so for about $130. For those items you just don’t want to spend the time stripping by hand, or for delicate pieces that need to have the paint soaked free, Shull’s is the place to go. (515) 255-9449

I got them back and my next step would be to cut a slot on each side of the sashes for the weatherstripping to fit into. For that I needed a router with a 5/32″ slotting bit. A Des Moines Rehabbers Club member was kind enough to loan me his plunge router and bit. Now, I LOVE power tools and I’m always excited to get my hands on a new one. This one was particularly fun and I was reluctant to give it back. I may just have to buy myself one someday and find things to use it on.

Here’s what the 5/32″ slotting bit looks like:

We had lots of fun at the Rehabbers Club Meeting demonstrating how to cut the slots for the weatherstripping.

And here are some pictures of how the slot looks. (Remember, the letters I etched in the sides are how I will match the sashes up to their original frames and panes of glass when I put them all back together.)

Don’t make the mistake I made here. In this next photo you can see I clamped the window on the side I had cut. I found out later the clamp had cracked the sash a little. I repaired it and all was well, but I learned my lesson. Only clamp the solid top and bottom. And use a rag so the clamp doesn’t bite into the wood.

I also damaged one of the muntins (that’s the wood between the small panes in an upper sash) when I was removing the glazing so I did a quick glue and clamp to repair that.

Here are my two damaged sashes waiting for the glue to set. The bottle of Citristrip is acting as a weight clamp for one of the sashes.

Now that the sashes were cut and repaired it was time to finish removing the remaining paint and varnish, give them a good sanding, and prepare them to be reglazed. Check back in my next post to see those steps.

I planted seeds for eggplant, brocolli, cauliflower, and tomatoes.

Hopefully with the lights and the space heater they’ll be warm enough to germinate.

I hope in a couple of weeks I’ll see some little green sprouts. Fingers crossed!

If anybody has any tips, I’d love to hear them. I’ve never done this before, so if I’ve missed anything, let me know!