We live in a house that was built some time in the 1830’s. I’ve been told by reputable sources that the windows we enjoy today likely weren’t original to the ~200 year old home due to their size–they’re abnormally large for a house that’s as small as ours, so we get to be the unsuspecting benefactors of whoever decided this little space was worth the extra effort…but whether or not these old boys are 200 or 150 or even just a measly 100 years old, when we had moved in they had certainly seen their fare share of the elements.
Long story short: I’ve had sheets of plastic covering pretty much all of the windows upstairs during our four year sojourn here…some sashes just had a few cracked panes, some had a few missing pieces of glass, some didn’t have any glass in them altogether, nearly all had only remnants left of failing paint and were showing discouraging signs of rot. Attempting to restore them was a task I’d been steeling myself for for quite some time, but somehow or another kept pushing the task to the bottom of the to-do list…likely out of a subconscious fear of the size of the task, and the uncharted territory should my resuscitative efforts prove to be in vain.
But, in August of 2024, after getting the rainwater out of the cellar, the heat pumps in, the well hooked up, the gutters up on the eaves, and a few choice walls painted, there was no task on the list I could convince myself more pressing than getting these damned windows in working order.
I’m writing this from a blissful mountaintop 4 months later in January, having spent nearly every free evening and weekend since racing against the cold to scrape, prime, paint, glaze, and fit these god-forasaken ten sashes back into their frames, weather-stripped and gasketed to the nines.
In the afterlife, I’ll be happy to be the likely only name in the book for the only one (ever) that listened to the entirety of the Dungeons & Daddies podcast (over 70 episodes, thank you very much) while scraping lead paint off old windows…that one’s mine.
Of course, there are a few more steps to go yet (milling up, fabricating, and painting the stop beads [the final trim pieces that hold the bottom sash in and act as a guide to ride against]), but, for now, the wicked elements are held at bay, and for the first time since we’ve lived here I’m looking out through glass down at the garden.
softpaths.blog 
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