The weather has been too hot, too rainy or too unpredictable for weeks, but finally today I put the first coat of linseed paint on the bay window that I stripped in April. It’s a big old thing. It took all day, a third of a tin of paint, and there were more than 50m of edges to cut in.
It’s looking pleasingly Gothic now and it finally matches the rest of the front.
I found a photo from August 2013. I like it better now.
I painted this window myself in 2013. 6 years later the nasty horrible modern gloss paint has cracked and is peeling. Modern gloss paint is not great for UV light so will crack and let water in. It is also waterproof so the water can’t evaporate out again. Modern gloss is not flexible so it first cracks at the joints where you least need water ingress.
Most of the rest of the house is finished in linseed paint and everything painted in 2015 is still perfect and well protected. Linseed paint never needs stripping as it doesn’t crack. It just fades (this gloss seems to have faded too) and needs toping up with another coat of linseed every 10 years or so without the need for any preparation. Linseed oil paint is the plan for this window so I don’t need to restore it every 5 years, but for best results I need to strip the modern paint off the window..
It’s a big old window and I’ve been putting it off. It’s now just about the only exterior woodwork in the house that hasn’t been stripped and repainted in Linseed paint.
Modern gloss paint is very slow to remove and the profiles are fiddly. I reckon I’m in for 3 days stripping this window. But the weather is really nice at the moment. And it’s really good to chat to meighbours as they pass by my socially distancing scaffold.
Fortunately I don’t have to touch the sill as it appears to be made from cement. It seems to be functioning OK and not causing other problems so I’m going to leave it alone – whatever wood that remains under the cement can dry to the inside.
I stripped the paint from inside too. There was an amazing thickness of paint – maybe 2mm on the inside and 5mm in the corners, and all of it had been applied after 1979! There is a detail photo here. It wasn’t too bad a job and took a couple of days in total.
The weather forecast isn’t so good next week so I’ll make a start on the secondary glazing before finishing stripping the outside.
It rained all week on and off. I demolished the bar and then realised the front door could be lifted off it’s hinges and replaced whenever it rained so I decided to strip that too. It is the original 1920(ish) front door. The red bit in the middle is a panel that was replaced with plywood maybe around 1990 when the burgundy paint was applied. The door started off white, went brown, then black, then green, burgundy, then a darker green. I notice it hasn’t been yellow yet.
The door has survived remarkably well. Even the very worn weatherboard at the bottom of the door is the original. The door was re-mounted to hinge at the other side at some point, and the wear on the weatherboard suggests this was perhaps 1/3 of the way into it’s life, so maybe 1950s. A number of hinge arrangements were tried before they settled on the current one.
A few of the mouldings have been replaced and some of them don’t work very well so I’ll need to make some new mouldings that work better with the old ones before painting. The stained glass has been lost. Later I’ll do something completely original with that.
It’s a big window and taking a long time to strip. I had a lovely day in the sunshine talking to neighbours as they walked past. I haven’t finished stripping the window yet so I can have a lovely day tomorrow too.
Human contact has brightened my mood and I’m thinking about reinstating openers on the end bay windows so I can chat to neighbours who pass by when I’m doing the parquet floor.
I’ve been putting off doing anything with the bay window in the main room, mostly because it is very big and will take ages. The other reason is I’m trying to avoid taking another room out of action until some others are more finished. The room was double height from the 1920s to the late 1970s when a false ceiling and mock tudor was applied inside.
The void above the ceiling can be seen here: http://www.the-salutation.co.uk/blog/domed-lath-ceiling/ You can probably see where I’m going with this and with modern insulation and a scaffold tower for decorating it will look spectacular.
But I don’t want to start on the main room before I’ve finished some of the other rooms. I just want to secondary glaze the window as it was really cold in there last winter.
I’ve started off having a peek behind some of the mock Tudor and look what I’ve found – 1920s panelling! This is going to be fun.
A bit of destruction later and it turns out the panelling extends above the window too. It has survived in remarkably good condition. A couple of panels have been removed for access in the past, but it should be possible to make new panels and mouldings and restore the panelling.
You can see the scale of the window when there is someone in front of it on a scaffold tower. The whole room is oversized.
A false ceiling was largely supported by a bit of wood bolted to the 17C timber frame. The holes in the top of the panelling provided access for that and I can’t fit new panels until I remove the false ceiling.
The paint on the inside of the window was very thick and was getting in the way of my secondary glazing prototyping. Removing the paint will take a couple of days, but the mouldings underneath are pretty.
I’m retraining to do building conservation work, so if you fancy some Arts and Crafts secondary glazing my email is at the bottom of the page. Or if you prefer making your own here is a somewhat dimensioned pdf of the profiles together with a cutting plan that didn’t account for the saw blade width.
I’ve been messing around with ideas for secondary glazing for the last couple of years. The mainstream secondary glazing seems really ugly and very expensive. My bay windows don’t have any openers so I’m planning to make a fixed wooden frame with a similar profile to the existing frame. Here is my prototype. It doesn’t quite fit together because of the curve in the bay, but it’s close enough for me.
Last year I bought a table saw and router table for the work, and enough wood for both bays. Today I have made a start and have been creating sawdust. As usual I’ll update this post as I go along.
If you ever buy a table saw make sure it has a cast base with some chance of staying flat. I’ll be buying another one before doing the big bay window.
The profiles worked out well. My dimensions are a little inconsistant, but there should be some adjustment possible during fitting. The edge mouldings went through a redesign as I realised it would be better to attach them to the window frame rather than the cill and ceiling.
Annoyingly I can’t figure out how I did some of the radiuses on the protype. I remember putting a lot of thought into it at the time but have forgotten all that now.
Fitting the glazing frame was time consuming. The window isn’t a very consistant shape so it took a little imagination to fit the glazing frame in a way that would accept rectangular glass. The bay is curved and a 7 degree angle kept cropping up, and not always where I was expecting it.
Adjusting things to fit and then fixing the glazing frame took 2.5 days in total, more than it took to make the profiles in the first place. After getting everything perfect I added 1mm gaps between the bits of wood to allow for some expansion. I’ll fill those with linseed putty.
Then after all that obvious progress in just half a day. I finished off the prep and painted the inside of the window. In the photos it looks nice in natural finish, but in the flesh it looks a whole lot nicer in black. It’ll go more matt once the linseed oil paint soaks into the wood and dries.
The glazing at each end is not original. I think someone skipped some rare curved Crittall openers and replaced them with flat glass with some lead stuck on. The middle three panels are curved.
I maged to paint over the numbers on the secondary glazing frame pieces that told me where they fitted and was left with a jigsaw puzzle.
With the frame in place I started cutting the mouldings to size and now my brain hurts. The parts are cut at either 45 degrees, 41 degrees or 49 degrees depending on the moulding width. The 41 degree cuts also have a 7 degree compound angle to account for the curve of the window. Gave up and had beer instead.
I found cutting the profiles to shape was much easier when I used an off-cut and cut the ends to fit the angle of the uprights then marked the saw settings on the cut end. Once I had the angles it was easy to cut mouldings to the right length and angle. The angles were different for every piece, largely because I set the glazing to fit the window and the window isn’t quite straight.
I’m very pleased with the finished secondary glazing. It blends in and looks like it could be a part of the original window, and will likely disappear completely once it’s black. I think the glass will stand out much more than the frame being faceted rather than curved, but I’ll wait until I’ve finished the big window in the next room before ordering the glass. This job has taken 7 days so far, and it’ll be interesting to see how much quicker I get on the big bay.
Slow updates – I’ve been in Sweden again. I painted the front windows when I moved in 5 years ago, but it turns out modern oil based gloss paint is not UV resistant and the paint cracked after only a couple of years. Problem is when you have cracked paint you need to remove it (and everything underneath) before repainting.
The front windows have very fiddly profiles and it took about 3 days to remove the modern paint with a heat gun. Linseed paint is UV resistant and tends to dust rather than crack and just needs another splash of paint rather than stripping off, so I’ll be repainting in linseed so I can avoid doing any stripping ever again!
When I first moved in I thought the windows were beyond repair, but looking at them now I see window frames in really good condition.
I guess the difference after 5 years is just confidence and knowing what can be done to repair them. There is just one sill that needs to be replaced and a couple of mullions that will need some new wood letting in. I’ve got a bunch of photos of the rotten sill and they are all in focus but appear out of focus. The camera has seen much worse and I’m not sure why it is objecting now.
Maybe the camera was right. The sill was quite rotten and I ended up removing it right back to the inner face of the window. The rot in the mullions has been cut out at an angle to allow water to drain when the finish cracks.
That committed me to the scary bit – it would be my first time replacing a window sill, and this one is in a curved bay which complicates things. I practiced on modern wood before attempting the repair.
The new sill was made from the sill of the original sash removed from the back bedroom – 100 year old wood is much more durable than the stuff available today and also much harder to cut.
The curve was cut with a bandsaw and the taper added with a planer. Repairs to the profiled mullions were cut with the bandsaw. A new box of chisels was involved too. I’m quite pleased with myself – some tidying still needed but it looks the part.
The gaps and cracks were filled with linseed putty and the first coat of linseed oil paint is looking fabulous. I went for black to match the rest of the woodwork on the facade and to balance the top-heavy look of the half timber upper floor. I prefer it to the before photo of the facade here, but it doesn’t seem quite right yet.
I still need to fill around the window with lime mortar, then paint another coat or two. Also the lead roof still needs to be fitted. I’ve been stripping the inside of the window on and off as the profiles look prettier without 1mm of paint, but that will be a fill in job as I’m determined to work outside while the weather allows.
John came over to fit the 3 upstairs windows this week (he made them at the same time as the kitchen window but I hadn’t got around to preparing the openings until recently). The windows were made from Douglas fir painted with linseed paint and have double glazing and sealing strips. They operate very smoothly.
I still need to do something with the arch on the downstairs window which has sagged a bit. Here is a before picture:
The rear of the house has some nice features. I’m tempted to remove the flat roof infill with the patio doors to the left to expose the walls and let a bit more light inside.
Finally a building regs change of use job unless I get distracted. They want me to replace a pretend sash window in a bedroom for fire egress. There are another couple of other late 20th century windows that would need secondary glazing and it’s only twice the price to just replace them to get all the windows to match.
There is some prep work before the new windows can be fitted – I’m missing both the stone sill and the brick arch in the bathroom window, and want to replace a cracked stone sill which is falling towards the house in a bedroom.
The bathroom window may have been installed in 1996 (judging by the newspaper stuck into the gaps) but the wood sill was quite rotten. It came out very easily – fortunately the cement wasn’t stuck to the bricks! The new windows will look like the replacement kitchen window.
The new stone sill is now fitted in the bathroom window opening and I’ve trial fitted the new brick arch for the first time. It nearly fits, though the mortar gaps are still a little small. The Georgians never added an arch to this window so I’m copying the Edwardian arches further along the wall. The middle of the arches are all 1 1/2 inches higher than the edges whatever the width which simplifies things as every opening is a different width.
There is another heatwave at the moment which is very bad for lime mortar but great for linseed oil paint. I’ll get on with gloss work inside and finish the arch next week when the weather cools.
Linseed paint is a real pain – it is lovely to apply but takes well over a day to dry to the touch, then never really drys because it is oil not paint. But it’s fantastic stuff! It’s why you can still find original Geoirgian windows around. A 200 year life would be pushing it for modern paints which crack after 3 years and then trap the moisture needed to rot the wood.
I’ve exposed an original stone window sill in the bedroom and have added a photo only because I couldn’t find a photo on the internet while researching my missing sills. The wall is maybe late Georgian or early Victorian, but (edit) I’m going to bet the sill is from 1920 and was re-purposed from the bricked up window in the other bathroom. I ordered a new sill to replace it, but the crack wasn’t that bad so I’ll save the sill for when I reinstate the window in the original location.
The sill is flat and 9 inches wide, same as the wall thickness, but set with a 2 inch overhang and also extends 2 or 3 inches either side of the outside opening. That leaves a bit extending inwards to support the sash window. I’m not sure mine ever had a fall to shed water, but the new ones are going in with roughly 1 in 25 fall.
The arch is finished and I’m quite pleased that it looks like it has always been there. Must have been as it turns out to be nearly impossible to retrofit an arch directly under the roof.
Access was limited by the roof and guttering and no access from above made the last brick especially challenging requiring a gravity defying brick pointing finger (I use cut down table knives) to apply a very small amount of mortar at a time, then on edge to compress it down to the base of the arch. Much mortar ended up on the ground.
I messed up on the window height for the bedroom window. The sill had a fall back towards the house, and resetting it to fall away from the house reduced the space available for the window and now I’m 10mm short.
The lintel was squint and looked a bit loose so I’ve taken the opportunity to re-bed the lintel a little higher which gives most of the space I need. The sill might end up being a tiny bit low but I have some room to work with now and can at least get a little mortar underneath it.
Of course as soon as I make a huge hole in the bedroom wall we have heavy rain and thunderstorms! The trick to sill fitting is to set out the sill on spacers and then push the mortar 3 inches underneath from each side and compress with the pointing finger.
The old window went quickly back in the opening after it started raining, and the new fall to the sill turns out to make it thunderstorm proof. Even with all the gaps no water got in at all despite the heavy rain bouncing off the glass. The two bricks above the sill are a job for tomorrow – the thunderstorm was quite unexpected as I hadn’t looked at the weather. Waterproofing seems to be more about falls than sealing everything up. I’m tempted to seal the new windows in with lime mortar which should allow the wood to dry after thunderstorms faster than burnt linseed sand. Not using silicone as that would rot the wood even when it isn’t raining.
With the scaffold tower down it looks so cool to have an arch and a sill in the bathroom opening – they transform the window. The new window is loosely in place behind the arch former, but only the top sash is resting in there at the moment. I’ll post some before and after pictures after the new windows are fitted.
The same bricks were used in the photos below and above. I think the north wall is so clean because it was limewashed from new.
A photo of the new bathroom window here.
The original sash window in the kitchen had been replaced by a picture window in the 1980s, but the original crooked brick arch remained in place. We decided a sash window would look nicer.
It was quite a job to remove the concrete lintels from above the picture window, We removed them in two halves so half the opening remained supported while we bricked up the other half.
The new window was made by John to match the original Edwardian windows elsewhere in the house and looks lovely. He made another 3 windows for upstairs which we will fit next year when the weather warms up a bit.
I had the idea of rendering the exterior and plastering the interior of the oriel window at the same time because I was using the same lime mix for both. This was a bad idea – making the exterior watertight before messing with the interior would have been more sensible.
The oak window sill (needed to go in before plastering) was made by Cardington Joinery and is marvellous.
The timber above the oriel window was originally in-filled with brick then roughcast rendered (in a very early use of portland cement – yuk). I wanted to reduce the weight of the window because the lintel over the window below has a pronounced bend. Woodwool board would have been an ideal infill but it isn’t widely available and delivery would have cost £100 for the £6 sheet I needed, so I went for lath.
In hindsight the span is slightly too long for lath and it bent when the wet lime render was applied. Then it sprung back as it dried so I might end up with a feature bulge.
It didn’t go well. The lime failed to set and after a week was soft and crumbly. I suspect I let it dry too quickly, or it is possible the mix or some component was wrong. Whichever It needs to come off and be done again and I’ll experiment first to make sure I have sorted the problem,
Plan B is back to the original plan using wood wool board. I only needed small sections and used offcuts pulled from Anna’s skip. Thanks Anna.
The lime failure turned out to be my fault. The plastering sand is washed so is poorly graded and needed about 1:1.25 lime to sand compared to the 1:2.5 ratio I tend to use for mortar.
The new render was much stickier than the old, and the wood wool board turned out to be very much easier to render than lath to the point where I hardly dropped any plaster when doing the ceiling. The first coat went on nice and flat and will dry (and be wetted) for a week before the finishing coat.
Next job will be fitting the windows. But I can’t do that yet as I need access to tend the lime plaster inside. Next job might be getting ready for the limewash and paint on the front as that needs to be done in the summer but it is already Autumn.
The original upstairs bay window was rotten and couldn’t be saved. (It turns out it is an oriel window as it doesn’t touch the ground.) The new window frame was made by my cousin John and was installed today.
The profiles were recreated using spindle cutting tools modified to exactly match the original, and further mouldings were guesswork based on old photos of the originals.
But the frame isn’t an exact copy of the old one. It looked nice but It would be mad to copy something that only lasted for 100 years. We’re having another go at it.
The original wood (a slow grown redwood) is resilient and would have been fine but it isn’t easily available these days so we used Douglas Fir. The window will seal only to the inside face of the frame, and if (when) that seal cracks water will be directed into channels and some holes to a ventilated space below the window cill. There are no horizontal surfaces – everything sheds water, and there are drip features and overhangs all over the place.
I like old stuff and conservation, but mostly that is because I like quality of workmanship and materials. I think this is the best bit of the house.
There is still some work to do. I’ll need to fit the crittall openers and leaded glass, then fill the remaining bits in lime to keep everything breathable. Then secondary glazing to keep building regs happy.
While measuring up for infill panels later I found I couldn’t measure as accurately as the window frame has been made. It must be to 0.1mm tolerance.
Following on from the last bay window post. It seems a bit mad to be restoring Crittal windows in a building that isn’t listed and I don’t have to. The reason is I like the faceted effect of the leaded glass and don’t want to replace it with double glazing. I am under building regs instruction to improve thermal performance so will have to fit secondary glazing however I mount the leaded glass.
I’ve had the Crittall frames sandblasted. BBS of Bedford did a super job. Anyone planning to do this should first remove the handle first as it turns out to have brass fittings under the caked on paint. The hinges are also brass.
The windows have a fascinating construction. The frames themselves are brazed together, then the brass hinges are screwed on, then the bars to the right of the photo which create a flat external mounting face screwed from the inside of the frame.
The frames weren’t that bad – only the bottom rails were starting to get a bit thin in places.
The frames from 1910 are mild steel so can be welded. I built up the edges with MIG then ground down to create the original profile. I think the edges need to be welded as they will be sensitive to knocks, but everything else can be done in car bodyfiller.
I’m using Bilt Hamber Electrox primer which is 90% zinc by weight. I keep nearly dropping the pot as it is unreasonably heavy. It offers some cold galvanising protection which I have found to be very effective on previous car projects, but it does need the shot blasted surface to stick well.
The screws holding the windows together are 1/4 inch Whitworth.I bought some old stock screws from eBay still sealed in 1945 packaging. Some had become a little rusty but there were enough good ones for what I needed.
The leaded glass was rebuilt by Fraser of Tempsford Stained Glass who did a fantastic job. Most of the edging needed to be replaced, a couple of glass panes were changed, and he soldered in some new wire ties to attach to the glazing bars.
The frames and glass are going up to Sheffield and a replica wooden frame and bay window timbers will be built around them. (Because I liked the original frame profile too.)
The handles and catches are nice too, but I was missing one of each. Rather than do any lime on the hottest July day on record I’ve started to make up some new ones. The handle isn’t finished yet but I’ve done the tricky bit.
Later here is the (nearly) finished handle. I’m quite pleased with it.
All of the windows in the front of the house are leaded and the slightly different angles of the glass reflect light in a wonderfully faceted way outside. They all match, and they are all 105 years old. How mad is that in this day and age for a window to last for over 100 years?
I’ve mentioned some issues with the upstairs bay window. Due mostly to ill treatment and lack of maintenance the rot is only held together with paint and there isn’t enough wood left to save. But I’m not going to be the one to get rid of the windows.
Some maintenance is necessary though. The opening windows at either side were made by Crittall and are steel framed. They were screwed to the wood frame by 2 screws through each edge of the frame plus several more screws all around holding a spacer bar. We’ll need to add secondary glazing for building regs as they aren’t great thermally.
All of the glass needs to come out of the frames for maintenance. I have been advised to stick some ply to the glass with silicone sealant to support the leaded light when it is removed from it’s frame. However the leaded glass repair guy has suggested next time I want to get windows out I should get him to do it. Presumably there is a better way.
Only the bottom of one of the opening windows has any real damage to the metal frame. Condensation running down the inside of the glass has rotted the frame and caused the glass to push outwards and upwards. The lead will need a little repair but I think the metal frame might be OK. Condensation won’t be a problem again with secondary glazing.
I think there were once similar opening Crittall windows on each side of the big bays. Those have since been replaced with plain glass with stick-on lead.
More later! My cousin John will be making a new wooden window frame to match the original profile together with a new bay to put it in. My job is to fix the Crittall windows and send him some dimensions. More likely I’ll sub out the fixing of windows and get back to pointing.
With the windows removed and some of the frame fallen off the window is not at it’s best.
I’ve taken a section from the bit that fell out to send to John who will try to make the new frame look similar,
I’ve not posted much for a week as I’ve been doing boring stuff, mostly pointing. I want to get most of the scaffolding down soon and it’s mostly pointing holding that up. I can manage about two square metres a day of pointing when it’s just wall, but tidying up 20th century bodging (cement or carnage from the boiler installing muppet) slows progress,
Today I was sorting out Georgian bodging and a loose arch above the north window. It is a very shallow arch and the pointing had eroded badly on the vertical joins causing it to come loose.
The wood board is a former for the new arch supported from the window sill by 2×2. It’s set at a lower level to catch any bricks that might fall when I remove the arch. After raising I screwed it to the window frame to hold it in place.
I did a trial fit of the bricks to figure out the spacing, then marked the joint positions on the board to make sure I had enough room for a brick when I got to the middle.
The arch only really holds itself up. There is a wooden lintel holding up the inner wall, then a course of header bricks bridging over the arch to help support the outer wall.
The joints are tight at the bottom of the arch. I built the arch with a finer sharp sand and have recessed the joints a little to allow pointing with sand that matches the rest of the gable.
The arch is finished bar pointing. Another photo soon unless the wall falls down or I get distracted and start doing something else.
Several weeks later it looks like it has always been there. I’ve also replaced the silicone sealant around the window with lime mortar, though I will also need to replace the window with a sash for building regs fire egress.
I’ve had countless calls (well, none is countless) saying we’re bored of the brickwork, roof, and random history. Can we see a bit of timber for a change, and in particular was it a good idea for someone to tidy up the beautiful timber on the first floor bay window by nailing planks of wood to it in such a way that water was directed in but couldn’t get out again? Then for good measure mess up the leadwork to make sure any water travelled behind the gutter.
It wasn’t an especially good idea to nail the planks of wood to the bottom of the bay either. The main timbers behind the bay look good, but the window will need to come out to be rebuilt, and the bay window timber frame will need to be rebuilt. I want to keep the window as it matches the grand bay windows on the ground floor, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep very much of it.
The joinery on the bay window looks fairly straightforward. There don’t seem to be any fancy joints, just bits of wood cut and nailed together. The timber frame holding up the roof behind is fine but the bay will need to be re-made.
Some time later we removed the windows for restoration and installed a new bay window frame.
We didn’t get to speak to the Conservation Officer in the end, but the Planning Department seemed generally happy about our application so we’ve updated the plans with their recommendations, had the dates changed on the various surveys, and have put in a proper planning application.
It was helpful to have the extra time to think about the design – the pitched roof replacing the flat roof looks much prettier, the barn/function room will now be a medieval banqueting hall instead of a garage, and Kae has grabbed some extra space for the kitchen. I’ll post plans on here when they are scanned.
Meanwhile I’ve been busy on the exterior woodwork. The windows were painted with modern paint – you can tell because the finish has cracked. I want to paint the windows that we aren’t going to replace before the winter. They are in a state and are taking a lot of time to prepare, but the wood is still reasonably sound.
I’ve been putting this window off – it’s the big one at the front where the double height room used to be. It’s 10 feet wide by 7 feet high and is fiddly. (For metric conversion see how small the front door is by comparison.) The bank holiday weekend should hopefully have it finished.
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