232 Green Street

Window Scraping - Part II

Window restoration has been an adventure and we have learned that patience is a virtue when it comes to this sort of project. Without patience the 100 years of paint build-up don't come off very easily!

The picture to the right is me scraping the first window, the one from the previous post. We'd let it sit for about 4 hours and I wanted to start scraping...I don't have much patience considering that the stripper said it would take 4 to 24 hours to work. Guess I should have listened. The first couple of layers of paint came off but the remaining ones stuck fast to the wood.

After scraping most of the first of the two sashes, we decided to let the other frame sit a while longer. You can see the difference in the middle picture to the left. The sash on the left is the first one we attempted. The sash on the right is the second one. See the wood grain! No more paint...well on the flat surfaces that is. The sides have been more of a challenge because of the tiny details. But once you have the right tools - a fine pointed scraper and a wire brush - the job becomes a little bit easier.

So at this point we haven't gotten very far. I don't think we quite realized the project this was going to be. We are only partially through scaping one side of the window! We still have the window frame to scrape and rebuild, sash cords to re-install, and then we need to put in all back together again. I'm just glad we only took out one window and not more!

This project also makes a big mess! I guess that's what happens when you're dealing with 100 years of paint!