Guess what I did today? Well! Are you ready?
I (the girl), used power tools (the power). !!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah ok, that nowhere near sums it up.
Yet again, Tom had to work today, so it was just Daniel and me. Let me just make it clear that Tom has certainly pulled his weight with the house this week, so his not being able to help us today doesn't even come close to letting us catch up with his effort.
However! Tom is kind of the glue that holds my house dreams and my eventual house reality together. In other words, he is the one that actually pulls out the toolbox and makes things happen. So without him, we're usually limited to tasks that don't require all that much handy-man-ness to accomplish, such as painting.
Today though, Daniel and I got brave. We decided that if we're going to try to move back into this house within the next week (provided of course that the powers that be - literally, the power company - get their act together and reconnect power to our house), it would be really nice to not have gaping holes in the back wall of the kitchen.
So... Daniel and I decided to put up the windows on the west wall of the kitchen ourselves. FINALLY! How hard can it be, right? In actual fact, it's not that hard. It's just time consuming and frustrating and hard on one's hands.
Here's what happened.
I amazed myself by proving that I could cut notches out of the window frame for the hinges using a chisel and a hammer. Without seriously injuring myself, too!
I was on my fourth notch before I'd mastered it without making a bit of a mess of the surrounding timber, but you're still impressed, right?
We held up each of the windows (which already had their hinges attached) and marked where each of the screws needed to go, and then I, yes I, drilled holes for them. Note: even though screws are designed to be able to make their way through wood without pre-drilled holes, most of our frame is hardwood, which makes for extremely tough going. A little hole considerably smaller than the screw in diameter doesn't affect its grip, but makes it a great deal easier to get the screw in all the way.
The obvious next step was to hold up the windows again (which are pretty darn heavy! An extra pair of hands - i.e. Daniel - was extremely necessary) and then insert the screws in the hinges to hold them in place. This happened relatively smoothly (although not particularly quickly), although I did have to readjust the length of one of my notches which I'd obviously miscalculated slightly.
One window up:
Magic! Two windows up! And looking a bit strange hanging over thin air and looking out to our junk pile in the bakyard.
So, to do something about this situation (the thin air, not the junk pile), it was time for us to install the window sill that we stole from the other kitchen window . To do this, we had to first measure and cut two pieces of wood to act as vertical supports for it. And then came the almost impossible task of actually attaching the window sill to its supports.
We tried drilling a hole and then inserting a screw. Which broke.
So then we tried hammering in an extra long and thick nail. Which bent.
This is one giant hunk of timber. So, after briefly considering admitting defeat, I came up with a brilliant idea (of course, because I'm awesome, remember?). We could use right-angle steel brackets on the underside of the window sill to not only attach it to its two vertical supports (let's call them legs, shall we?), but also the two vertical posts on either side of the window as well. This was also no mean feat, but eventually we were done, and I'm extremely proud to announce that it's sturdy as a rock!
Our thin air is thin no more!
Given that our main goal for this weekend was actually to start sanding and painting rooms in the house other than the master bedroom, we persevered this far in order to get to the point where we could actually install the VJs in that area of the kitchen, which in turn could be sanded and painted! Makes sense, doesn't it? Except that just getting to that point took until about 3:30pm. Daniel did manage to get some sanding done, so the bulk of the kitchen is sanded.
And then his phone rang, and he was called away to work. So then that left just me. Again. Oh, plus Allie, of course, who thought all of this was a big yawn.
I gritted my teeth and started nailing in some of the VJs that Tom had managed to cut last Sunday without disturbing our (current) neighbours, to the left of the windows.
And then I cut some more to size myself (yes, with yet another power tool, the drop saw) and installed them under the window.
While of course enjoying the supreme organisation of our collection of nails. Shame nothing else nearby was organised.
Ending with this result. The corner is going to be tricky, and requires better cutting ability than the drop saw can give me right now.
So then I started on the little triangular area near the roof, to the left of the window. On our quiet Sunday last week Tom had also cut these to size.
Except that they were a little too tall for the space, so I got caught up trying to cut a notch out of the second board so it could fit around the roof battens that he had put in.
By this stage it was 6:25, 5 minutes before our noise curfew arrived for the rest of the weekend. I tried to slot it in, but because of the angle the battens are at, it wouldn't fit properly.
So I gave up. We'll just have to cope with a few remaining gaping holes in the kitchen, although it's definitely a vast improvement on what it was, if you compare this photo from earlier in the week:
If you're interested in why I've left the square to the left of the window VJ-less, wait and see. I'll explain soon. On the topic of explaining soon, I will also eventually tell you about my side-of-the-road discovery. Never fear! It will happen! Potentially soon if I can't get much painting done tomorrow given how little perparatory sanding happened today. Heaven forbid we have to sand by hand!!!!
Sleep well, big day tomorrow as always!
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