THE WINDOW

Let me tell you a little tale of woe about THE WINDOW. Not the cracked rear view window, or the secret window, this tale may be called "the old window's curse".

The window sat for years, waiting until its time to spring into action. As soon as Lisa and Jack took down the protective plywood wall, it awoke from its many decades of sleep to attack them, sapping their time and subtly adding frustration to their lives. It was insidious in its desire to thwart them.

Ok, so SOMEBODY before me decided to use plywood instead of wallboard. duh. Dad and I just could not let that stand, so we did the expected thing, and ripped the plywood off of the wall underneath the window. Underneath, DISASTER! old termite damage, and its corrolary, water damage was displayed for all to see.

We dutifully cut out the old wall studs, replacing them with new strong pine 2X4's and noticed that the window sill was waterlogged. We thought, ok, we can fix that. So we began to rip that out too. Well, of course, that is quite a job, so we think, heck! let's just hire this done. Ok, so after about 4 bids, we figure 700.00 is a kings ransom for a stupid window. The prefab ones at Home Depot/Lowes are not in this size and would have to be ordered. We renew our strength, and after all of the cabinets are placed, we tackle the window once again.

Funny, that window still had plans for us. We salvage the panes and the actual window parts, and set ourselves to creating a new sill and casement, with its several layers of molding. Great! Dad creates a beautiful sill (twice, because the 1X6 was actually smaller (oh yeah, they always dress the wood down, so 1X6 is actually around .75 X 5.5 or so...we forgot that point that we both know really well. ) so now we are creating the frame and get that thing so beautifully square, solving about 15 problems along the way. It is gorgeous! We get the thing in and boom, it fits just perfectly!

I am ecstatic! but over confident. I take the can of spray insulation (gosh, that stuff is cool and fun to use! you just spray it, and this great yellow foam comes out and fills in all of the holes....no stuffing itchy pink stuff into small spaces. Great invention. Did i mention it is fun?) and did I ever seal that window into the house....it is not budging. no airleaks. super!

We get to putting the inside molding back on and "hey, wait a minute...this thing is flush with the wall, and the other windows have a place for the molding to go...." oh no. We put one set of outside moldings on the inside of the frame when it should have gone on the outside. But of course, since I have now sealed the ding dong window into the house, there is a significant problem getting the ding dong thing out and fixing it. grrr.

So, I am calling lowes/or home depot and getting a new window ordered. The Curse of the old Window has bested us. Dad and I acquiesce and bow our heads to its power. Besides, the new prefab one will be a double pane argon filled window. oh well. Even us "master carpenters" are bested on occasion.