Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Window frames
Work
has started
on the window frames this week. At the moment I've just got some large
holes in the wall upstairs ready for the dormer windows. All the window
sills have been fitted and the idea is that the window frames I am
making will sit on the sill and then the stonework can be rebuilt back
upto the frame. The window is the fixed to the inside of the frame.
Most of the houses in this area of Brittany use granite sets to frame the windows and doors. It looks great but would get very expensive in my case because I would want to add granite to every door and window. The other alternative is just to use the existing stone to form the window opening, but it's very time consuming and difficult to form a square edge with the stone I have on site. The compromise I have come up with is to use local oak beams to create the window opening then rebuild the stone us to the edge of the frame.
I bought eight lengths of 3m x 100mm x 200mm oak beams and this is what I am using to create the window frames.
Each of the windows to be fitted are 80cm wide by 135cm tall and will be fixed to the inside of the frame. French windows all open inwards so the actual window is about 5cm wider and 4cm taller to overlap my oak frames.
Hopefully this will become clearer once they are in-situ.
The sections shown above are 145cm long with the top section 100cm. Once they are assembled with a simple joint it leaves the correct size opening. Each of the top corners will be drilled and pegged. I expect to use about a 15mm hole then fashion the pegs from some of the oak offcuts.
At the moment each frame is taking about 2-3 hours to make because none of my tools are quite big enough to handle the wood. All the joints and chiselling are being done by hand.
One frame done, just another four to go !
| 8:15:17 PM
brittany
renovation
Window frames
