Hatton House Diaries

One day, we decided to buy a 125 year old Victorian House in Des Moines, Iowa…….

If You Give a Rehabber Glazing Compound October 17, 2015

Filed under: Remodeling and Design Projects — hattonhousedsm @ 4:11 pm
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Our front window has been broken for about a year. We had to special order glass, and by the time it came in it was too cold to install it. Then in April, our baby girl arrived and all work ceased. Just recently, Doug took out the broken glass and, although it took two weeks to get the stained glass store hours right (closed on Sunday AND Saturday after 4), finally installed the glass. One less project that should have been done last Fall finally complete! On to the next one, right?

Wrong. While he had glazing compound out, he thought he’d look at our other windows. Like this one, a roughly 4×4′ window in the front parlor.

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Look closely. See those white spots in the glazing? Yeah. That. That’s where all the glazing points have popped out. This giant plate of glass was held in by exactly 3 points, two of which were in the bottom. So now that project has been upgraded to the extremely urgent list.

Realistically, every window in this house needs to be reglazed, weather stripped, and/or completely redone. Particularly the ones I already pulled last August, the week before I found out I was pregnant, followed by three months of sleeping roughly 20 hours a day. Wish me luck with a warm Fall.

 

Ease Your Panes – Window Restoration Class Comes to Des Moines April 2, 2014

Filed under: Remodeling and Design Projects — hattonhousedsm @ 11:53 am
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windowworkshopHatton House is hosting a window restoration class for the Des Moines Rehabbers Club. I’ve wanted to take a class like this since we bought this house, and after a year of planning, it’s finally coming to fruition right in my backyard…er…middle parlor! The class will be taught by David Wadsworth of Decorah, Iowa, and will be a hands on workshop where people will have the chance to work on donated windows and learn the ins and outs of window restoration.

Why did I want this class? Original restored windows with storms have a higher R value than replacement windows, but the cost of hiring someone to restore them would be cost prohibitive for us. $500-700 per window is unrealistic for a house/budget like ours. Learning to restore windows for roughly $40 in materials per window would be pretty easy to recoup a return on investment (especially in a house as drafty as ours!)

There are a few spots left at the class this Spring, so sign up today. Here’s the link: http://renovatedsm.org/class-announcement-restoring-wood-windows-with-david-wadsworth/ See you in a few weeks!

 

Faux Finishes in Paint and the Paintastrophe March 22, 2012

Filed under: Remodeling and Design Projects — hattonhousedsm @ 5:44 am
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Finished glazing technique in first floor bathroom.

We are finally done with our paint finish. I knew how I wanted the paint to look, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to make it happen. I researched paint techniques online, surfed Pinterest for a few hours, and made two trips to Lowes before I decided to just wing it. I bought a natural sponge roller, a hunk of natural sponge, a feathering brush, and some chocolate glaze.

I worked the glaze in two layers, the first one to get a mottled finish over most of the wall. Once it was dry, I came back over the top to bring up more depth. I mostly used the roller for the main wall, working the glaze into the corners with the feathering brush. One clear coat later, and it was exactly how I wanted it to look.

That’s when the paintastrophe happened. The low tack tape that we used pulled all the paint off down to the drywall!! Primer, paint, two layers of glaze, and clear coat…all torn off. It was terrible. Horrifying even. So, we started over: sanding down the edge, feathering in the orange base and brown glaze, then finally the clear coat. It added several days to the bathroom (mainly because I was a giant chicken about feathering in the glaze) but it’s finally done. It’s only a matter of time until we have a working toilet on the first floor now (right?)