I Learned To Frame A Window

…And that is what I consider a sizeable accomplishment. Self-pat on back.

Pete had installed that new window in his parent’s house several weeks ago. I did a little bit of caulking, but let’s face it, he was the one who did the heavy lifting. Last week I gave you a sneak peek into how incredibly the drywall came out (silky smooth and freshly painted) but I still owed you insight into how he decided to frame the new window.

We’ve never done this before. Seriously, we had never gutted a room ourselves before, we never insulated ourselves, we never drywalled a full room, and we never installed windows. Just add this to the list as another successful experience.

Pete had an idea of how he wanted these windows to look – and he found a photo showcased on Warren Construction that pretty much mirrored his vision:

The general idea involved simple 1×5 boards instead of fancy cut-by-the-linear-foot trim. A sleek look, and easy to do, and easy to find lumber. And mad inexpensive compared to some of the stuff out there. What I like most of all is that it looks a whole lot less than the traditional and expected window framing you see in new construction –  it’s modernly simplistic in a way that makes me want to redo every single window in my entire pad.

We started with the window sill piece first, simply because it seemed like a logical place to start and we weren’t sure where else to start from. The sill board itself was a 1×6 board so that it was guaranteed to be generous in depth. It was simply cut to length and notched with a jigsaw so that the sill was nice and snug to both the window and the drywall that it overlapped. I should note that we used the awesome nail gun for this entire install. Aside from that, we used the jigsaw I mentioned, a circular saw for longer cuts, and a square to ensure, well, square edges.

From there, we worked to create the side pieces for the inner frame. These pieces measured from the new sill all the way to the top of the window frame, and were also nail gunned into place. Pete also had to cut the boards a little bit the long way since the window isn’t set more than a few inches into the wall. This was deemed the hard part, but it all worked out well.

The top of the inside of the sill was the next piece to go in, and fortunately all we had to do was trim a piece to match the width and depth of the remaining space at the top in between the side boards. I’m not entirely sure this makes sense the way I’m explaining it, so please remember you can click on the photos to see a bigger image. And ask questions. We’re here to answer questions.

The last part we tackled was the face of the new window frame; because we wanted it to overlap the interior frame entirely, it was just an effort in cutting the remaining 1×5 boards to length to fit all the way around the window.

How about a close-up on that pretty window sill?

Pete also got around to taping and priming the new windows (we considered staining briefly, but decided it would just be neater at this point to make them a clean white finish). They have yet to be painted, but are looking pretty swell as is. Disregard the Scotch blue.

And another close up of the sill that I’m so impressed with. What do you think?