Painting all done

Here's a pic of the window and wall all painted / touched up and ready for the new blinds that are still being made. Got some fancy top-down / bottom-up cordless honeycomb blinds. Hopefully they fit.

I've also finished installing and painting all the baseboard trim in the room (after this picture was taken), which after seeing it makes me want to install some crown moulding too. I'll save that for the future though.

Inside finish work for Windows

Started to attack the woodwork and trim around the windows. Here's a pic of what the windows used to look like before - it was trimmed by just drywall and had an old tile window sill.

To begin the demolition, which I did so the new windows could be properly installed, I removed all the drywall surrounding the window (as close to the 2x4 studs as possible) and also ripped out the tile and interestingly enough 2 inches of mortar. Luckily I could later fill that mortar gap with just a 2x4.

Showing old window and mortar overkill.

After with new window and 2x4 filler.

So, in order to finish up the windows now, I bought several boards of 1"x4" pine (which is actually 3/4" x like 3 3/4"). Measuring the depth from the new window to the front face of the drywall was exactly 3" all away around the window. Luckily this was fairly consistant so I didn't have to make any strange cuts to compensate for differing depths. Measuring the width and height of the window, I set on my way to create a frame to box in the window. Both windows were 59 1/2" high by 46 3/4" so I cut down 2 boards to 58" for the sides, one at 46 3/4" for the top, and for the window sill, I cut a 6" wide board down to 5" wide and 53 3/4" long (adding 3 1/2" for the overhang on each side).

Ripping the boards to the proper depth/width.

For the window sill, I routed each edge to keep things smooth and finished. Can't remember, but I believe I used a 1/4" rounding bit. Would have been a lot easier with a routing table, but it still worked out surprisingly well with just my palm router. Just took a little finesse. 

Next, I used my jigsaw to cut away the 3" deep x 3 1/2" wide sections so the sill would fit into the window space, yet leave a 2" overhang. I routed the edges of the board first, as doing it after cutting with the jigsaw would have been a little trickier.

Next, to fasten everything together I used a Kreg R3 Jr. Pocket Hole Jig. It worked great and is a slick little tool. It came with everything, even the longer bit for my drill. In order to clamp the piece temporarily when I screwed the pieces together, I used a little 6" vise grip c clamp. I searched around for any alternative I could, but turns out this actually worked out really well.

Completed frame ready to nail into place.

Placing the frame into the space, I used shims all the way around so that it was even around all the sides. Any areas where I would nail into the 2x4 frame, I would place shims.

And the final pic of a window, with the trim nailed into place and everything patched and caulked. I still need to finish it up by painting it, however.

Another little tidbit. In order to create the stool below the window sill, I had to use real wood so I could cut and attach the tiny sliver of wood to each side to finish up the detail. I cut the side of the trim to a 45 degree angle, cut another piece to 45 degrees to match that angle then cut it to the thickness of the trim. To hold it together I used wood glue and tacked it together with a staple gun equipped with 5/8" brads. My first attempt cracked the sliver, but I eventually got the pieces bonded and solid without destroying them. Using the staple gun definitely wasn't the best way to go, but I didn't want to spend $100 on another nail gun.

New Windows

A look at the new windows I've been working on installing (although a buddy of mine who knows what he's doing did the majority of the installation). Before they were aluminum and sound really carried through them when cars would drive by. There was also plastic shutters flanking them, which I had to take off in order to rip out the old windows and install the new.

I had to pull the trim off to get the windows in (all screwed in from the outside). I luckily found the house paint in the garage, and was able to touch up the paint on the trim and voids that were left behind when removing the shutters. The original color of the house was apparently dark brown with bright green trim. Lovely?

I upgraded the standard vinyl windows a little bit, and got ones with an STC rating of 30. Standard windows have a STC (Sound Transmission Class) of around 25, and an increase of 10 in the rating apparently cuts the sound in half, so I've noticed a pretty good decrease in sound with the new windows. Having windows with and STC of around 35-40 would have been really nice, but they would cost a fortune, as the exterior walls of the house have that same rating. I'll share some pics of the inside work once I start tackling that. I'll be installing wood casing around the windows, as before they were trimmed by just drywall and a tile window sill.

Green Thumb?

I definitely don't have a green thumb, but try to at least keep things neat and tidy in the garden. Looking back at old photos, things certainly look better than they used to after putting in some edging, bark, and of course weeding.

Bad photo of before.

After!

Ah... memories

I've been working on installing new windows in the house. Was looking at some older photos for some "before" shots and things certainly look a little different. Here's a quick before and after of the front of the house. It's not a true before and after, as there was just dirt at the front when I first bought the house.

Aluminum windows with plastic shutters, plus unfinished flowerbed.

New vinyl windows (downstairs too) with (edged) flowerbed all finished.

In between this, I was reminded of the disaster that was my sprinkler system shutoff valve. When winter came around, I wanted to shut off the water, but couldn't find my shutoff valve. Many days of digging unearthed the hidden valve - and instead of replacing the underground valve, I instead completely moved it inside the house. Definitely the way to go as a valve outside the house, sitting right next to the foundation with a possibility of leaking or bursting seems kinda dumb.

Eventually found the buried hole leading to the valve (completely full of dirt).

The PVC pipe that was supposed to lead to the valve didn't actually lead to anything. Had to dig down about 5-6 feet to discover this fact. Seems the previous owners had tried to fix it earlier, gave up, and buried the evidence. I found the bottom of the broken PVC pipe buried about half way down the hole.

A look at the hole completely dug out. You can see the T junction where the sprinkler system joins to the water main. The stop/waste valve was less than a foot away from the foundation wall.

A look from the outside.

Most of the work to fix things was done on the inside. Got the T junction and valve removed and all the pipes moved inside the house. Moving it inside allowed me to have easy access to shut off the water to the sprinklers, and also hook up an air compressor the the line to blow the water out of the sprinkler lines if necessary.

Insulating the Gaps

I started to insulate the joist gaps between the floors (from the basement). First up was the wall in the laundry room that neighbors the garage. I went to visit my best friend (Home Depot) and bought a 2" thick 4' x 8' Rigid Foam Insulation board. My friend was nice enough to cut it into 2' sections so I could fit it in my car. I measured the space to fit in the joist space and rough fit them first, then I used some construction adhesive (safe for foam board) to stick the boards in place. I made sure to leave a little gap all the way around for the spray foam to fill.

Space before foam...

And after, glued in place.

The insulation, as you can see, has an R-10 value - so it's a decent amount of protection from the elements. The Owens Corning stuff has the best rating too for 2" - although the DOW stuff at Lowe's has the same R value, for some reason it's almost double the price. If I wanted to go overboard, I could add a double layer in too, but that's probably overkill for the particular application.

So, using about 2 cans of "great stuff" expandable foam, all the cracks around the insulation are sealed, and also the gaps between the foundation wall and the sill plate.

Helpful tip. Don't be dumb like me - wear gloves.

All done. Should keep those ants and anything else out, too (including air).

Wall Destruction

I've had to tear down a wall of drywall in my laundry room for a while now, so that I could get to the dryer vent that had completely disconnected inside the wall. While doing that, I tore down the adjoining wall so that I could add insulation within the exterior wall, and the joist space between the floors. I started ripping out the wall and discovered a nice little surprise.

Luckily the ants were long gone, but cleanup was certainly fun. It was good that the only wood they'd eaten was just furring strips too. It was interesting to find that the previous owners had installed some foam board within the wall too, because it's not in any other basement walls.

Here's a closer look at one of the furring strips that they turned into cardboard.