About those front windows...

I've been quiet! I had a crushingly underestimated job, which is good I guess - I'll be able to hire some people to do the two still-leaking sections of the roof on the big house. Also, a need for orthodontia is making itself known among our younger generation. These things never cease. But I still hate running three days past deadline and not actually knowing how long it'll take to finish up.

But we're here to talk about my house, right?

It turns out that somehow, despite repeated (and confirmed) measurement, the front windows for the carriage house were simply 1/8" too big for the frame, a situation which I still can't rationally explain. Reasoning, however, that taking the inside sill plate off would allow me to insert the windows straight in, instead of tilting them, I took the plate off -- and they were still too big.

Then my dad came over on Wednesday. I had been up until 4:30 AM working on some Italian quality control procedures for Alcoa (I earn the money with technical translation, if you were wondering) and so I was none too coherent, but we fixed the bathtub drain, which I'll post about separately, and I showed him the front windows.

Well. As we remember from the bathroom episode, my dad likes a challenge, and his creativity is only helped by the fact that here, he doesn't have to clean up after destroying things. It's liberating to watch him. The upshot: the windows don't actually have sills any more; we're going to have to come up with something different, like a really skinny sill or possibly a thinner plank across the top to make room for a thicker sill down below. Ah well.

At least I can get some air and light into the front room now. These look pretty decent, don't they? Better than the plywood, anyway - they're just tacked in place right now until we can replace the sills, though.

The neat thing is that the upper sash on the left side still had its counterweights intact! Sixty-year-old knotted ropes and all. I figure this was only possible because it was painted shut and therefore hadn't been moved in a very long time.

Also, fun fact: the spacing for the sill consists of chunks of brick simply laid in place to support the sill where the builder wanted it. I didn't take pictures yet, and don't want to take the window out just now to show you, but I found that pretty cool.