Where I gather my thoughts on the days window restoration projects, old houses, and rants. Hopefully, providing some education on antique windows along the way.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Window Woman on This Old House

First I got an email from Tom Silva looking for ballpark pricing on restoring some 6/6 windows. Then I got a call from the This Old House producer. After looking at the project in Bedford, MA and learning some about the way the show works we signed on to restore 14 windows.
The challenge will be how to work with the new EPA RRP rules and still make good television. Also challenging is that the windows are old but the openings don't match the windows. Not sure quite how we are going to deal with that. For sure it is not a pure restoration project. I think it will be more of a "living with an old house" story of how to deal with what you have and make the best of it while being respectful to the house.
Filming will begin in a few weeks, episodes won't air until OCtober 2011.
Stay tuned...

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Moving a shop

If you've ever moved your household you know how stressful it is. Moving a workshop is in someways a lot worse. The entire flow of work has to magically stop, everything get moved, and then start up again. Magic. Yes, that would be nice.
Nice would also be that everything works the way it should. Lighting, heating, phone, internet, etc. Our new space has almost nothing that works the way it should. Well, and we like things to be nice, too. Bathrooms - gutted and updates. Well, one is, the other is waiting for one silly little plumbing connection to be finished. Electric? Well, the wiring is done. Not exactly sure what is what in our panel as nothing was labelled. And there are pesky things like the extra breakers that go to the lights in the space below ours. Are we paying for those?
And then there is the heat. Our new space (3600 sq ft) is divided into three zone. The front "office" zone has a furnace that mostly works. The back zone has a Modine heater that is working fine even though it's pretty loud. The middle furnace has not worked since day one. Many people have looked at it. At long last the duct work was cleaned up, but those guys did not notice that there was no hot air coming out of it. They found a defective part and ordered a new one. That part came in, but now there is another part that is needed so another day of waiting.
Meanwhile my crew huddles in the back with the Modine, inadequate lighting, and horrendous acoustics.
This space will be great eventually. We've been working on it six weeks and we're darned close.
Except that my internet connection has been dead for two days....

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