Some Boxes

I got started on this post and then just spaced out on posting it. Sorry, anxious followers of this restoration saga. Here we go. I even updated it with more photos.

The work on the windows on the east side of the house continues. The hooded casings over the windows needed to be taken apart and rebuilt to have a little slope to them, and two needed the wood tops replaced because of rot.

You can see that the crew did a lot of epoxy work on there to repair some rotted wood. Since the other option was to basically completely deconstruct the window trim and take the siding off, this works. There's a lot of wood repair to be done on this job and not all of it involves replacing the wood with new stuff.

Two fo the four original windows on the east side of the house had a lot of weather damage. Just the consequence of where they are placed and what the weather patterns are like. So Woody made these two lovely new wood caps. They will in turn be capped with metal that will be painted, to replace the old lead window caps. The lead was too far gone to just repair.

It sounds like the fabrication of the metal caps will take a while, because Woody didn't even want to tell me when it would be ready. Often when he says things like that to me he gets anxious that I'm getting angry about the timeline, which is not quite true. I would obviously like this to be done, but I want it done right and I want it done carefully, so I know it will take time. Patience is everything in this project.

And here is one of those wood caps in place over the window. This is looking down on the east window in the front parlour, if you feel like trying to orient yourself in the house. It's all epoxied and primed and ready for the metal to be installed over it. This time, it actually has a slope to it so it will shed rain rather than directing it into the house, just a new thing we're trying out called "common sense."

And for reference, this is what the siding looks like after it's been stripped of paint.

The holes are caused by the iron in the nails rusting and acidifying and eating away the wood over time. Woody re-attached the siding with brass screws, and this will all be filled with epoxy fill and sanded smooth. This is what the board ends looked like on the other sides of the house, as well, so nothing special, just an insight into why the process takes so long.

And here's a little teaser for you of some upcoming things I will have to show you:

Exciting things afoot. And I need to go learn how to use a skid-loader.

posted by ayse on 05/23/18