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!

 

Restoring the Hatton House Windows, Part 1 of 572 December 12, 2013

Filed under: Remodeling and Design Projects — hattonhousedsm @ 5:38 pm
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Rope caulk pushed into our drafty windows has made a huge difference.

Rope caulk pushed into our drafty windows has made a huge difference.

This past weekend, we hosted the Des Moines Rehabbers Club monthly meeting to talk about our many window projects. I’d posted on Facebook a few times about my project refinishing the front doors, and that I was a bit overwhelmed thinking about all the windows. Since we offer an example of just about every type of window issue, it was suggested that we meet here and talk about window projects.

A helpful summary of the meeting is posted on the Renovate DSM website here. The meeting brought us a great deal of clarity, breaking down the various projects into where we could start working immediately, and ideas for how to solve the issues most frustrating to me. I left the meeting feeling like I had all the information needed in order to get started on the windows I had already diagnosed.

Very drafty windows require approximately one metric ton of rope caulk.

Very drafty windows require approximately one metric ton of rope caulk.

While we couldn’t sensibly take the windows out to work on them in the middle of winter, one of the things we talked about was rope caulk, a slightly stiffer than silly putty substance that can be used to seal up drafty windows. I bought a box that was supposed to cover seven windows, which ended up covering about three of our extra drafty windows. The impact was immediate, making the rooms we did significantly warmer right away. In fact, once we got one room done, it made the room across from it more drafty, so if you do this in your house, be prepared to go all in.  Our heating bills have been completely ridiculous, so we’re hoping this has a big impact on our energy bill as quickly as it squelched the drafts. On to project 2 of 572!