Sticks And Stones

I always feel like I haven't gotten much done since the last time I wrote anything, and then I go back through the pics to look for things to include in the current post and...maybe I've gotten more done than I realize. Most of it, like the post title, involves lumber (sticks) and rocks (stones).

Last time we chatted, I had finished up a couple storm window mockups and was starting on repointing 3 basement windows. The goal was to spot repoint -- hit what's necessary, leave any existing, decent mortar as is. Unfortunately, most of it wasn't decent and I decided to repoint the entire wall sections, down to about a foot below grade.

​This was the starting point...

...and I quickly wound up here:

Somebody had repointed the wall previously but it was kind of a superficial repointing and the majority of the original mortar behind it was garbage, particularly around the window, so I decided to repoint the whole wall. I had good weather, I enjoy the work (in small batches), and if done correctly, I won't have to do it again in my lifetime, so it was an easy decision.    

The OSB in the above pic is covering a small hole, where I started digging down below grade. I only dug far enough to run into the home's original "waterproofing", which seems to be a simple parge coat (google it). I try not to pick at it too much once I hit it -- it's best to let that sleeping dog lie -- but I repoint down to it.  

As always happens, if enough mortar is removed, stones start to come out of the wall as well, especially the smaller stones. I save all of them -- piled on the sill and placed on the ground -- and do my best to put them back in the wall...somewhere. 

After being able to see clear into the basement, through the wall, about as much as I wanted to, I started stuffing new mortar into the joints. It's usually best to work from the bottom up but in this case the bottom was below grade and zero fun to deal with, so I worked top down instead. You might notice the mortar color on the left side is a little different than the lower portion of the wall, that's due to executing the work over a couple afternoons and the mortar had been curing for different amounts of time. Once it's all a few weeks old, it all looks uniform.

There's a spigot just right of the window and I hadn't yet bought a new one, so I stopped with the repointing and decided to start poking around the window jamb. Like the stone, I had hoped to reuse it, and maybe just patch any small rotten sections. 

But it was all in pretty rough shape -- that'll happen when you butt wood up to masonry for about a century and a half -- so I decided to remove all of it but the arched piece at the top.

One of the helpers heard the commotion and wanted to watch, but there wasn't much to see -- the sawzalling and temporary bracing went quickly -- and before long I had the left side and bottom stripped out. 

I knew the mortar in the stone around the window was in terrible shape, that became obvious back when I gutted the "finished" basement and saw the condition things were in. I had to work from both the inside and outside of the wall, which made for a lot of walking back and forth, in and out of the basement, but the whole thing turned out pretty well. 

I boarded 'er up -- not yet ready to build jambs and windows -- and moved around the corner on the left to start tackling the next wall section.

Repointing the next wall section was pretty identical to the one I'd just completed, with one small difference: I discovered that I could get the paint off the stone pretty easily. 

I got the wall repointed and the old jamb and window out but quit taking pics of things, so let's pick up back at the first window. I built a new window jamb, which is this:

The jamb took some work due to the stone sill being a little out of level, but otherwise it was pretty straightforward. She fits snug, the sides of the wood touching or near stone and mortar were all flashed, I made sure to carve out window hinge pockets, everything is sloped the right direction, and most importantly (to me, anyhow), I achieved this: 

Again, the second window jamb went pretty much like the first one did, and the results were about the same:

That was early June, and I would have been a little farther along in the window replacement project but some time had to be spent, occasionally, away from the tools and mortar dust and long hours sitting still, chiseling away at limestone...

The best thing that happened over the past few months hasn't been the house progress -- it was seeing Farley (the bigger dog, who's all of 9 months old) finally not be timid around water. Freckles loves water and swims like a fish but it took Farley a few outings to follow big sister's lead, so that was pretty cool.

Aside from the window work, I also tackled a bunch of other ancillary projects, like replacing the dishwasher. This thing came with the house and might be about as old as I am; the amount of mouse poop I removed from under and on top of this thing was staggering. 

I also built a new miter saw station. Even though the miter saw should almost never be used to make any consequential cuts when doing high-level-of-detail-woodworking, I didn't want to start building windows without having a better miter saw setup. And, I have a bit of a storage problem in the basement; I know all too well, from experience, that building stuff is zero fun when you're constantly having to rearrange the shop or dig things out of piles or can't find a tool, so the miter saw station was just as much about storage as anything else.  

This was the old setup:

And this is the new one:

Then I started building windows. I scrapped the first effort due to too many careless mistakes, mainly me dropping window pieces and putting big dents in them. The second effort is almost ready for glue and clamps, but I'll tell y'all about that in the next post...