After many hours of painstaking plaster removal, electrical wire rerouting, plumbing installation, gas line addition, and far too much dust in my hair I can say that we are finally at the point where we are closing this baby back up! That’s right, folks, we have 4 walls AND a ceiling! I can’t express to you all how excited I was to get to this part of our remodel. Not only does it mean less dirt and dust but it also means that instead of looking at ugly studs (hmm is that an oxymoron or what?!) and pink insulation while I am making dinner, I get to see the crisp whiteness of freshly hung drywall!

Before we could hang new sheetrock we first had to solve the problem of what we would do for kitchen windows.  We opted to remove the 2 existing kitchen windows which had been installed during a previous remodel. Both windows were square shaped which is entirely wrong for the style of this house. We were looking for a wooden window frame that would measure about 40″ x 60″ in accordance with our design plans. One thing about living in a historic district is that we must request permission to complete any exterior changes to our homes.  This approval process is necessary in order to preserve the historic integrity of the neighborhood and for me it was  pretty quick and painless. I showed the designated organization the window that was currently in place and then provided a couple  of reference pictures and sketches of our intended changes.  Since the window that was in place was actually a newer window and the original window had already been removed at some point in time it was not hard to convince anyone to approve a design that would echo what this kitchen probably looked like when it was built in 1911.

We had two options as far as installing our new window. We could choose to purchase a new construction wood window or we could find an old wooden window with the correct dimensions and install that.  I considered and priced both choices. In the end my dad came across two window sashes that he had removed from a remodel he did on another home  a couple of years ago.  The two sashes put together would be the perfect size! He generously regifted the windows to us (free is good!!) and we set to work stripping and sanding the frames down to bare wood. My dad custom built the actual frame that the two sashes would sit in.  After that it was a matter of cleaning up the glass and staining the frame to match the rest of the woodwork throughout the house.  In trying to match the rest of the windows in the house we were also in need of a set of pulleys and window weights so that the sashes could be raised and lowered. That meant another trip back to The Wood Shack! We also picked up a lock for the window while were there. The hardware matches all of our other windows pretty closely.  My dad worked on sinking the pulleys into the window frame and we were ready to begin install. …But first, that meant ripping out the existing window.   Here is a before picture of what this window looked like from the outside.   Since the new window would be set over about 14″ to the left we had to mark exactly where our new frame would have to be placed. Raul and my dad began with removing this window. It was definitely a noisy process sawing through all of the studs that were in the way and hammering out the new window but after a couple of hours we were able to install the new window frame. One thing’s for certain- they sure used a shit ton of nails back in the day!   After the old window was removed we had to frame in the hole for the new window with 2×4’s.  We then had to cut the new opening. We tried to salvage as much original wood siding as possible. We will reuse this to cover up the hole left by the old window.

We had to close up the old hole with a few boards. The siding will be installed on top of these boards.

With the window frame set we could finally install the two sashes using the window weights we purchased at The Wood Shack.        

And voila! We still have a lot of molding to add to the inside and outside of this window but it is so nice to have this installed so that we can continue along with the fun stuff!