a hole in my house

Because one large home project wasn't enough, Mr. Pretzel and I are in the process of replacing my two bedroom windows. (Actually both the painting and the windows are an effort to prevent my house from falling apart this winter--i.e., they are mandatory projects).

Two weeks ago he and I removed the exterior trim from one window, took measurements, and ordered two windows from Home Despot. They finally arrived, so today we removed the interior trim (which is actually a rather beautiful bit of carpentry that I hope we can reconstruct), and pushed the fucker out.

Actually, this was quite an enjoyable feat because it meant I got to buy a sawzall today. For those of you who don't know, a sawzall is one of the world's most wonderful tools--it literally saws all. Wood, plaster, metal--all of it. One stroke of the sawzall along the bottom and the window slid easily into my waiting hands outside. All that was left was a marvelously large hole in the wall.

Thanks to Mr. Pretzel's carpentry skills, he built the rough opening out so that the windows fit snugly next to the plaster and lath. The only trick is that we had the wrong staples for his hammer stapler, so we had to use my free Westlaw stapler (with the blue staples) to attach the tar paper. Alas, the poor thing didn't survive the day.

The best part (besides the sawzall) is that Stephen measured that shit so well, we didn't even need shims to level the new window--it was already perfect. Sweet.

Now I just need to get a few pieces of trim to accommodate the fact that this window is much slimmer than my old double hung. It'll be quite nice--energy efficient, UV blocking, opens all the way, doesn't need to be propped, and has a screen.

Can't wait to do the 2nd one.

Thanks Pretzel!