As foreman and consultant, in addition to midwifing a mostly-historic remodel of this 1907 transitional Victorian / craftsman style house with chalet tendencies, we also did the restoration of the windows and doors. We did not have full control over all aspects of design, and it shows, unfortunately. the paint color choice was bad. The light fixtures were bad. The landscaping was bad. The owner also hired another crew to destroy the original chimney and fireplace, which the new owners bitterly regret. The precious bricks were carted off to the dump before I could find someone to salvage them.
When we started, none of the windows operated and many were almost un-salvagable. The owner would have replaced with vinyl, but was stopped by the local design review board of the Garvanza Historic Preservation Overlay Zone. The owner was forced to call me. The pulleys were all seized up, and all of the top sashes were fastened shut. In fact, the owner only hired us to restore “single-hung” windows, which are actually almost non-existent in the west. If you have single hung windows in California, no you don’t. they’re just painted shut. We ended up restoring the second sash functionality at our own cost.
Several meeting rails were sagging, which usually spells replacement, but a little on-site steam bending saved them. A lighter mix of the common bone-headed, handy-man alterations caused the usual headaches; the beautiful mortise and tenon joints on the sashes were mostly shattered by some genius who has driven framing nails through them, and then flush cut them off. The problem with doing that in softwood is that it inevitably loosens when the stress on the joint causes the hard metal to crush the softer wood fibers. At this point you’re back where you started, *and* you have a shattered tenon to deal with. Next, another handyman drives more nails through the joints until the corners look like swiss cheese.
Another issue was several panes of glass had been replaced with the wrong size and thickness, which causes the counterbalance not to work. The incorrectly sized glass was the culprit behind the structural problems that plagued these sashes. Few realize the glass is part of the system that keeps the window square.
thanks to having the right size and weight of glass, the sashes ended up square. The pulleys were released. By the end, top and bottom sashes could be smoothly lifted and closed with one pinky.
Overall, this house was a pleasure to restore.
