Window repair, that’s the project of the season, and i’m making some good headway.
We have the original beautiful wood, double-hung, cast iron-weighted, wavy-glassed windows in our house, and not a one is painted. Except for the bathroom. And the basement. And the outsides. They’re shellacked (mostly) on the inside, but painted (again, mostly) on the outside.
Most of them are also incredibly drafty, with about 2″ of good glazing on many of them, with the sashes rattling in the frames.
That’s slowly changing now, as I work my way through the house. I fixed a couple of them last year, but decided to make a big push before winter this year.
The biggest improvements are that i’m re-adjusting the trim (to fix some of the looseness), and adding some bronze weatherstripping to the windows, which makes a huge difference. They still slide up and down easily, but there’s no more side-to-side slop, and they obviously fit more tightly. We also noticed a big improvement in sound proofing, with much less traffic noise coming into the front bedroom. I’ll bet that in a couple of years, when the bronze tarnishes some, it’ll blend right in with the dark woodwork and look really nice too.
I’m also doing some minor cleanup and touching up the shellac on the windows. The lower horizontals on most ledges and sash frames is dry, and in some places, the finish is completely gone. A coat or 2 of new shellac, and they look fabulous. It works really well to blend and (somewhat) smooth the older coats. They should be much easier to clean too.
