Paint Season 2014: Progress Report

To be honest, there hasn't been much progress around the doorstep these days. Up until the last couple of weeks, the problem has been rain. And then it has been schedule. Oddly enough, I don't feel frantic about it like I did last summer. Perhaps because I've given up on the idea of getting the entire house done in one season (a lunatic idea when you're working mostly alone on a project of this size, especially with an older and long-neglected house).

Right now, instead of siding, I'm focused on the front windows. I painted the front of the house last year, as you can see from the photo above. And it looks super. But I left the windows for a separate project. That's what's going on now, and progress happens on a far less grand scale.

My dad and I removed the old aluminum storm windows on his last visit. Recently I started scraping and sanding the face frames, so that we can mount the new storm windows on freshly painted and caulked surfaces.

The face frames are the least of my problems though. The window glazing is boiled to a 75-year-old crisp. Or is missing entirely.

So there's another thing I'll be teaching myself how to do. Many DIY sites advise removing the sashes to do this task, but I think they are quietly out of their minds to think that I will have the spare time to remove the sash, remove the old glazing, prime, re-glaze, allow to cure, and paint and re-install all in....what? Twenty-four hours? More? This seems nuts to me. I'll be doing it in place, a stage at a time.

Right now the face frames are sanded, and I'm waiting for some slightly damp wood to dry thoroughly before I caulk. To prevent the wood from getting moistened again in the rain they have forecast for the next few days, I rigged up some temporary sheeting.

Yes, those are clothespins. No, I don't want to hear about clamps working better. This is what I have without making a special trip to the hardware store. It'll do for the short term as long as we don't blow a gale.

I have as a goal to get these two or three east windows done so that they can get their new storms, and to complete one more side of the house, north or south, before snow flies. The north side should go quickly because the siding and paint are still in relatively good condition.

Progress is progress, I said at the beginning of the year. Hope it still feels like it at the end of the year!