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’m not really expecting any better answer than “Nope, that’s what you gotta do,” but if I’m wrong and there’s a faster/easier/less painful on my knuckles (from scraping against the wall repeatedly) way to do this, I’d love to hear it.

And don’t say “Have your husband do it!”

To sweeten the deal, here’s some pictures:

I used the heat gun to strip the paint off the top of the baseboards first. Between the baseboard and the plaster wall is caulk. It’s brittle and breaks pretty easily when I chop it with the scraping tool.

Like so…

Sound effect for this picture: “chop.”

Also, just to remind myself that I’m still a girl, I painted my toenails. See? Yeah, I spent the whole afternoon chopping at caulk, barefoot with pretty red toenails. It’s the little things that keep me going.

Ok time for before and after!

Woo hoo!  I have my kitchen back!  We still have plans to add cabinets over the stove and fridge,  refinish and paint the existing cabinets, and actually paint the walls something other than white, but we’re getting closer!

[tags]cabinets, paint, plaster, future plans, kitchen, ceiling, light fixtures, flooring, dishwasher, drywall, refrigerator, photos[/tags]

I had to do a lot of plaster work in this room. I’m particularly proud of reconstructing this corner that had crumbled away as the house settled.

Here’s a before picture:

One side of the wall over the fireplace needed some major repair:

I started attacking the gunk on the floor with a new vengeance, doing garbage bag sized sections rather than grocery bag sized ones.

Mom came over with some of my friends to help me put primer on the walls.

We bought a new rug, cleaned everything up, and arranged the furniture and here’s the result! It’s not finished, but I can see the finish line from here!

Phew! We can actually live in the living room now! Paint colors for the wall are being planned, also I’m going to restore the bookcases with leaded glass windows.

[tags] built-ins, photos, plaster, furniture, paint, future plans, ceiling fan, flooring, living room, fireplace, cabinets[/tags]

When I last blogged, the kitchen had a brand spankin’ new floor and we were trying frantically to get all the wallpaper scraped and the ceiling finished. The paint colors in the kitchen were… delightful.

When we scraped the wall over one of the counters, we found this weird black stuff underneath that wasn’t on any of the other walls we scraped. Not even under the counter where we put the dishwasher in, which was right below that countertop. Anybody know what this stuff is/was?

The funny thing about it was that when we painted it with primer, it bled through and came out just as messy and weird.

But we forged ahead and painted over everything with tons of primer.

(Seen enough of the back of Brandon’s head yet?)

After my friend Laura did an awesome job scraping this wall we found the outline of the original kitchen sink and the outline of some wood trim like is in the bathroom. Maybe you can’t really see it here, but use your imagination. Anyway, the shape of the outline matches the shape of the kitchen that’s now in the basement. We think that sink was originally in the kitchen and got moved downstairs to be a dump sink. I LOVE having a sink in the basement so I’m grateful.

Let’s see… what else did I do?  Oh!  I put joint compound on the drywall on the ceiling.  There was a tricky spot over the stove and fridge where the drywall was about 2 inches too short.  I had Brandon cut me some 1-inch wide strips to fit in there and I glued them to the furring strips before putting mesh and joint compound over them.  They came out pretty good!

The gap:

The drywall strips glued in place:

Joint compound going on over the mesh:

Almost done painting:

Check back for part 2 when I’ll have some finished pictures for you!

[tags]ceiling, plaster, paint, drywall, photos, cabinets, kitchen[/tags]

Pictures!

My first corner!

Kind of blotchy after wet sanding.

See how bad our corners are? This one has fiber tape over it.

Gosh, is that how my hair looks from the back?

I’m not particularly proud of how this corner came out. I’ll sand it down a bit and add another smoother layer.

Ok, enough about the plaster. Let’s talk about the weather! It’s been cold here! So cold I can’t think up a colorful simile with which to describe how cold it’s been. (Leave me a comment if you’ve got a good one.) Anyway, it was a great opportunity to show just what a difference plastic sheeting can make when you’ve got leaky windows and worthless storms.

Here we see a window with plastic sheeting intact. Notice: NO FROST! That means no warm, moist air is leaking out into the frigid outdoors, and no frigid outdoor air is leaking inside.

Now let’s look at a window on which the integrity of the plastic sheeting has been compromised by the claw of a scheming cat.

And in other news…

I FOUND MY SCRAPER!!!

See if you can spot it in this photo:

How about now?

Yes, folks, the scraper was INSIDE Brandon’s bicycle. How it got there I’ll never know. But I’ll tell you, the only way I found it was by buying three new scrapers of the exact same kind that very morning. (Still sale priced at Menard’s, btw.) After I’d safely tucked them away in my tool box where they belong, the prodigal scraper glinted at me from inside the bicycle and we were tearfully reunited.

If I can stop hiding things from myself, this house may actually get done someday!

 I did my first corner last night.  Pictures are coming soon, I promise.  All the corners in this room are cracked and separated.  Structurally, the walls are sound, it’s just that nobody repaired the plaster that cracked as the house settled, so the cracks have just been growing under layers of wallpaper for 50 years or so. 

 Like I said before, I’ve never done this plaster thing before so when someone recommended using a wet sponge to smooth the plaster after it had dried, I figured I’d try it.  A sponge didn’t really do much, but a regular kitchen scouring pad worked great.  Nate, my friend!  Why are you submitting your lungs, your eyes, and your roommates to the dust of dry sanding?  Wet sanding is the way to go, bro!  Maybe dry sanding is faster?  Anyway, there will be no dust angels in my house, at least not from plaster dust!  Maybe I can make paint chip angels when I start stripping the woodwork.  (shudder)

I did a corner over the door last night and it turned out pretty good!  When I started getting sleepy and frustrated, though, I put away the plaster and worked on taping the rest of the cracks in the room in preparation for plastering later.  I got almost all the taping done last night so I’ll have a jump on things when I get back to it this weekend.  We’re supposed to get a snow storm so it’ll be a good weekend to stay inside playing with white powdery stuff.

 Let’s see… what else have I been doing around the house?  Oh, I’ve been stripping more paint off the door in the basement, getting Brandon’s help on getting the paint off one of the registers using ammonia, and perhaps most dramatically, continuing my quest for a razor scraper.

 Those cheapo utility scrapers just aren’t cutting it for me anymore.  So on my last trip to Menard’s I picked up a better quality, slightly larger hand held razor scraper.  I got it home, tried it out, found myself perfectly satisfied with it, and promptly LOST it somewhere in my house!  I don’t know what could have happened to it!  Somewhere between pausing in scraping the dining room floor and stepping into the hallway to get the broom and dustpan, I put it down somewhere and haven’t been able to find it since.  Brandon helped me look for it all that evening.  We continued the search the next day.  We overturned every item in our house, looked in all the least likely places.  I swear to the Flying Spaghetti Monster we looked in the refrigerator!  It’s still missing.  I may have to buy another one until it turns up.  I hope they’re still sale priced at Menards when I go. 

That’s it for my update for now.  Happy Wednesday, everybody!

It was totally fun to work with. It had the consistency of marshmallow fluff!

Patching nail holes was super easy!

Now you see it…

Now you don’t…. or, WON’T after I paint.

After I did all the nail holes and imperfections, the room looked like it had a bad case of the chicken pox covered with calamine lotion.

Since I was having so much fun patching things I decided to take a stab at repairing the larger cracks. Keep in mind I’ve never done this before, so if I look a little petrified in my photos, that’s why. Someone at Menards recommended this self adhesive fiber tape. It seemed pretty easy to work with and I had the set of cracks over the door taped in no time.

Brandon had some fun playing with the macro setting on my camera.

And then he had some fun playing with the color enhance setting on my camera.

Wow, with that color enhance thing, all the little cuts and knicks and raw spots on my hands really look awful!

I’ve never worked with plaster before, so I took some time mixing it just right. The Country Crock tub Brandon emptied earlier while making his awesome mac and cheese worked great for a plaster tub. It took a little while to get the hang of applying the plaster. And I didn’t know how fast it would start to harden! Holy cow that’s fast!

More pictures later of the sanding and the biggest challenge, the cracked corners! I hope to get started on those tonight.

I’ve never patched holes in plaster before, so I’m hoping some of the websites and how-to videos I’ve been watching have adequately prepared me for the task.  I promise to take some video so you’ll get to see the funny bits!

Meanwhile I’m hoping these tips on fixing drywall holes will help when it comes to fixing my plaster-lath holes:

http://www.remodelingmyspace.com/how-to-videos/drywall-videos/how-to-repair-a-hole-damaged-drywall-video.htm