Another window themed weekend with highs and lows. We started on a high having collected these rather lovely metal lollipops from Ian Beck, a metal worker from Tysoe. Ian shares a warehouse with Dave our soda blaster and is another genuinely lovely man. Ian also owns Indie, the golden Labrador (the glove thief) who we met when we were having our floorboards cleaned by Dave. These lollipops are window catches for our metal windows and get embedded in the oak up to their heads, and the latches catch on them to close the windows. They are designed to be slightly wider at the centre of the circle to tighten the window closed. We have a few original ones left but some of the windows have modern catches so we will replace these.
Then came the low. We picked up the metal windows from a glass company in Leamington and it wasn’t until we got them home that we realised the error. They had been replacing the putty and some of the glass that was broken. The putty was only within the inner edge of the frames originally but they had put putty on the outer edge too! They were smothered in putty making them very difficult to handle and covering our lovely soda blasted metal frames… Cat nearly cried. Much bad swearing ensued. Putty got everywhere…
The putty should only be on the inner edge, when it is all over you can barely handle them as you just put hand prints in the bloody putty. It won’t be dry for about a month so we have the joys of trying to paint them, seal them and fit them, all with soft putty…
It’s a mess and getting messier every time we handle them and move them. We have googled how to remove wet putty and the residue (it gets on everything) from metal windows and getting nowhere. We have decided we will take them back to the company first thing Monday morning and get them to remove it.
Cat finishing off the bathroom floorboards with a coat of oil.
The colours are spectacular, worth all the backache, sore knees, aching hands???
Sunday and Glynn is back to repair the two rear windows, the study window and the landing/Zanna’s bedroom window. Both of these windows are in pretty good condition and just need the sills repairing.
The study window having the outside edge of the sill repaired by cutting in a new piece of oak.
Any soft or rotten oak gets cut out and a new piece of oak gets cut to size and fitted into the gap.
Glynn finishing off the sill on the study window.
Cat has started to strip the paint and filler from Zanna’s front bedroom window. It is in a pretty bad state and is all the more difficult because there is still glass in it. This window doesn’t have leaded lights like most of the others so the frame needs stripping around the glass.
The old panes of glass are very thin and so crack very easily. Unfortunately many of them are already cracked (one cracked right across in the heat last summer!) so they will need replacing. The sill here is f***ed.
The frame, especially at the bottom, is in a pretty bad state and you can see from this picture how curved the window is! It would likely have been straight when it was made (although not necessarily) and has moved out of shape with the walls. None of our frames are straight but this is the one most shaped like a banana…
The landing/Zanna’s bedroom window having the outside sill repaired.
Glynn chiselling out the frame so the new oak fits well.
Checking the fit.
The new oak gets glued and pinned in place.
The new piece of oak in place.
Cat has painted the bathroom window and it looks very smart with the sitting room window. A long way to go yet but we are making progress.
Zanna’s bedroom window is looking very rough indeed. The putty holding the panes of glass is so thick that the glass is sitting on the outside edge of the window rather than in the centre of the frame as it should be. We think that each time the glass has been replaced over the years, the putty hasn’t been removed but added to, making it thicker and thicker.
Only one pane of glass survived intact sadly but not unsurprisingly, and as Cat has a (totally rational) fear of broken glass and Zanna is not keen on it either, Colin was called upon to remove the remaining glass.
And guess who is back! Henry hoover has been resurrected! His motor was burnt out but Colin has rebuilt it. We are so happy to have Henry back, he is one of the best workers on site.
Henry is immediately put to work. There is a lot of dust to clean up.
Cat painting the primer on the newly finished study window.
Many of the window lintels have remnants of the thick black paint and white filler that was removed by the soda blasting. Zanna has been tasked with carefully removing this with a chisel and a wire brush before the lintels can be oiled.
The bathroom window lintel finished and oiled.
The bathroom window is finished, ready for the leaded lights to be fitted.
Zanna’s bedroom window needs a bit more work yet…!
The study window just needing a top coat of paint and the leaded lights fitted.
Glynn’s repairs to the sill. The joins just need filling and sanding, then the top coat can be painted.
The oak that will be inside just needs oiling to match the old oak.
The sill repairs on the landing window awaiting a coat of primer.
Such a tidy job, once oiled and painted you will hardly notice the repair.
The old, rotten oak that was cut out of the landing window sill. This is definitely f***ed.
Glynn has improved the fit of the metal window by adjusting the hinges and catches. It has been a nightmare though with all the bloody putty on every edge of the window!
There are now putty finger prints all over the glass and putty all over clothes…
The angle of this window frame is particularly interesting, it has become a parallelogram appearing to have moved with the walls. The metal frame does still fit but only just and we are having to add oak fillets to the top and bottom of the inner frame to seal the window when it is shut.
The oak fillets added to the top and bottom of the inner window frame, hiding any gaps.
What in the heck were they thinking, putting glazing putty on the OUTSIDE of the frame?! You never put glazing putty there! It goes on the glass to seal it, that’s why it’s GLAZING putty!
K-razy!
I know right! Can only think they were done by a trainee… only reasoning we have for this idiotic error!
The floorboards look AmAZIng! What oil did you use?
Its all looking nearly finished, exciting! Then what will you do!
Thank you, we love them too! We are using Osmo Polyx Oil for all the woodwork: https://www.osmouk.com/sitechapter.cfm?chapter=82&page=247#PolyxOil and a waterproof version for the bathroom floor: https://www.osmouk.com/sitechaptern.cfm?bookid=Products&chapter=82&page=254#4006
We will never be finished! This is just phase 1, Phase 2 is the second half of the house and the kitchen extension, could take years……..! xx