The Front Window Trim That Was

I want to take a look at the front wall before I bought the house. But first, here’s what it looks like now.

And here’s one of those few I remaining spots where the before was nicer, at least in some ways. The casing on the left window was super super crooked even though the window was square-ish, and there was a chunk of it broken off, but period Craftsman style casing is still nicer than drywall jambs.

Living room, front

First thing I did here was discard the sheet metal radiator covers… which were held in with so much caulk it took all of my body weight to get them off. Also, do you see the crudely installed panel molding covering over the jambs? That definitely had to go.

We’ll start with the good: Corto American Radiators, a thoroughly modern and more efficient radiator style introduced in the 1920’s, and behind the radiators a bit of original raised paneling. This is the only original Victorian woodwork on the first floor that survived the 1920’s-30’s remodel.

And the bad: I thought that paneling had to be hiding something and it was. A gap had opened up between the windows, which were attached to the brick exterior wall, and the interior woodwork, which was attached to the floor joists.

Also, the window casings had an awkward jog inward as the radiator alcoves were narrower than the window openings.

I took off all the woodwork preparing to rebuild the jambs. Behind the casings I found the last wallpaper job before the remodel, showing that the original casings had been installed continuous and straight to the floor! This meant they stuck out in front of the existing opening.

Which suggests that this house originally had pocket shutters! The idea of losing this feature made me really mad. Then I got over it because I realized that once everything settled the shutters wouldn’t have worked anymore.

Do you know what I mean by pocket shutters? Back in the day, interior shutters were made with different sized panels so when you opened them all the way they would fold out of sight into the woodwork around the window. You can see the invisible open position in the background. (Image from shutterblinds.com)

Then I had one more discovery. There was no rough framing behind the finished window jambs. They simply nailed the wall studs into all the trim that had settled out of square. So I had to strip the plaster and reframe the openings. For a little bit I thought I’d save the plaster you can see in the photo, but then I stripped the rest of the wall, too.

And I put in the drywall jambs and strips of fiberboard “casing” to make it look presentable until the windows were replaced.

And that brings us to now! With the new windows in place the wall looks… even worse. The fiberboard is gone and the drywall shows the slope of the prervious windows. And Ninja broke both sets of cheap plastic blinds in this room. All this means that a permanent solution is in order.