Renovation Project – Part 4

Windows. Changing the windows in the house was something I was planning on doing at the end of the project when we could afford it. However, since watching house renovation programs, and seeing other houses in the area being renovated, they all appeared to change the windows first. So I googled this and that was the best advice. Change of plan, let’s get new windows!

Oh but wait, we can’t put the windows in just yet, we need to do some dirty jobs first. Leanne wanted to get the front of the house sand blasted and repointed. Let’s do that first!

We had Liam from LL Repointing come and hack the old pointing off. We also got him to remove the cement bands around the front windows and the door, and the cement along the bottom of the house.

Front of house bedfore

The only photo I’ve got showing the cement boarder at the bottom of the house

The pointing before

The cement round the windows

The cement round the door

The scaffolding is up ready to start the work

Liam has started his work and these photo’s show the first stage of the progress .

The cement at the bottom has gone

Cement removed around top window

Cement removed from around the windows

The old pointing has been raked out

Cement removed from around the door

Close up view of where the cement has been removed along the bottom of the house

When the cement was removed from around the door, it revealed red brick down the right hand side of the door frame. Above the door there was a wooden lintel which was completely rotten.

Rotten lintel

Before we could get the stone sandblasted, the lintel would need to be replaced. We also asked Liam to replace the red brick with stone. We sourced some stone from the old wall that borders our woods at Motsi’s Meadow.

The red brick has been taken out

Some stone has been put in place but hidden by the sack

The new stone

New stone

The stone work was completed and the lintel replaced. I did not get a photo of this before the sand blasting was done. We had Mike (Mike’s mobile shot blasting) come and do the sandblasting for us. He done a really good job, the stone and the window sills come up lovely.

After the sand blasting

The new stone lintel

Paint removed from windowsill with sandblasting

The stone after sandblasting

Paint removed from red brick

After the sandblasting

With the sandblasting complete it was time for Liam to do the repointing.

The new stone and lintel repointed

The bottom stone where the cement was removed looking better

The stone all repointed

Close up of the new stone around door

The scaffolding is off, repointing complete

With the front of the house finished, we thought the windows could now go in. We thought wrong. All the lintels inside were wooden and needed replacing before we could change the windows. We were hoping to have the new windows in before Christmas but this has delayed things now. More money and more time. This work could not be done until the new year.

I was going to include the new windows in this blog, but I feel it’s getting to be a long blog already so I’m going to make you all wait a little bit longer, sorry .

Just to finish off with some boring pics of the new lintels done by our builder Steve Jones.