nazSTUFF - Replacing That Old Window

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Home Improvements and Experiences

Some of my Experiences as a Homeowner

This is an ongoing report of my experiences doing maintenance and dealing with some adversity around the home. My experiences are not unique, in fact the universality of what every homeowner must face is why I decided to make this journal. We all buy a house with dreams and aspirations for our family and our financial investments. Very soon we become aware that everything requires repair and maintenance, be it landscaping, paint, roof, etc. Everything begins to deteriorate from the day it is created. I've taken photos of some of my bigger projects and I'm posting them here with captions as part of a contribution to an invisible support group, other homeowners. Some of this is therapy with the intent of creating empathy and humor regarding our shared experiences.

Home Sweet Home.

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Home Improvement - Windows, Trim & Paint

Home owner's report

Our house was built in August 1977. I witnessed it. I actually purchased the house before it was completed. I know now that it wasn't built by the most professional contractor in Flagstaff, dozens of code infractions were discovered and reported to the Registrar of Contractor by many of the new home owners in this neighborhood after purchase. Property lines were surveyed wrong, water meters were installed in the wrong place, property line easements were illegal in many places. We have one home in this development that is eight inches from its property line! Still we live here. People buy, sell and rent these homes anyway. Essentially we all concede to "city hall," where repetitively it is demonstrated that nothing will be done.

Nevertheless, in this installment of this journal, I'm recording the upgrade of the long neglected exterior. Time and the elements are brutal on houses in northern Arizona. To keep this report down to one page I'll focus on the windows, trim and paint.

This photo pretty much explains the challenge. T1-11 exterior plywood was sprayed with one thin coat of paint at the time of construction. No primer was used nor was much of a coat of paint applied. Just enough to sell the house. Here you can see that while we were busy living the sun and winter had made the exterior look more like an old barn than a home.

Here's a quick look at BEFORE and AFTER. On the left is the state of things when we finally got around to doing these repairs and on the right is how it looks today with repair and several coats of new paint. Same thing in photos below.

Here we'll focus on the bathroom window in a step by step fashion. This will give you a good idea of what we had to do throughout the house exterior. You can see that things have deteriorated considerabley over 30 years. It was decided that, while we're at it, let's replace the windows and trim before painting.

The first step was to remove and discard the old house trim boards.

The old window was removed, and recycled.

The new window was installed. Technology has greatly improved the product.

New spruce trim boards were added.

The upgraded window, with new trim and new paint.

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