Door and Window Restoration, Repair.

By Wendy the Other Half

The doors and windows in the cottage are not original, but are old and characterful and will do until Stuff Doer gets round to making new ones (not the horrible plastic ones on the top floor, they’re on the “as soon as is reasonably feasible” list). This though means the windows and doors we have need to be restored so they can last. They also need to look nice so, while the Stuff Doer ponders what work may need to be done, I have the really important job of picking the colour. This I had done, I had a colour in mind and, thankfully, they do it in the type of paint we need ie linseed. So far so good. Until I start stripping the door (leave windows to stuff doer, he’s the expert). Most of the door strips well with a hot air gun (except the jambs on the back that someone has painted with treacle!) at some time before it was painted bright yellow, then green, brown, then green again it was a lovely duck egg blue. This is a problem, I now want duck egg blue but I know that’s not available in the paint we need to use. Doh!

Other half stripping pain from a door

Stripping the door and discovering the previous colours

I’ll leave the Stuff Doer to explain how he’s mended the windows, but the upshot is, he’d like duck egg blue as well. I have now sourced someone who provides a mixing service for linseed paint (thank god for the internet). Hopefully it will be delivered in a couple of weeks from now. I’ll let you know how we get on.

Window stripping takes longer than Stuff Doer envisaged, although it does have the advantage of enabling him to talk to interested passers by hence my doing three guided tours last time we were there! I’m certainly not moaning though, we enjoy sharing the cottage. It is decided to bring home all the opening bits of window, so the last time I saw the cottage it looked worse than it had ever done with half stripped doors and boarded up windows.

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