How To Cover Up An Unwanted Window From The Outside

You guys! Since I've been soooo busy with the motion and getting our firm on the market, my good friend Melony fromSledgehammer Queenoffered to write a guest post on a fabulous trick she used in one of her recent flips! You are gonna LOVE this remodeling hack. And be sure to cheque out her weblog for more details on her awesome business firm renovations.

Hi, I'g Melony from SledgehammerQueen! I want to thank Christy for assuasive me to guest post on The Harper House! I love reading nigh the flips that she and her married man do. I'm currently on the prowl for shiplap so I tin can recreate some of the projects Christy does!!

My husband and I also flip houses in the petty town of Hooversville, PA. Our town was a mining town, and like lots of little communities across America, the earth has moved on to bigger and ameliorate. People tend to expect down on communities such as this, simply I've lived here for 34 years and I have to say, it'due south a great identify to live.

We have the beauty of the Allegheny Mountains all around usa, and for a customs of 700, we have a hardware store, 2 grocery/sundry stores, a postal service role, a bank and an eating establishment!! Our goal is to encourage others in surrounding communities to see the beauty in this town and to want to live in such a wonderful community.

Today, I want to share with you our solution to ane of those nagging problems- how to eliminate a window in a brick house and make information technology look nifty on the outside of the domicile; so hither'southward our accept on this dilemma:

When renovating houses, sometimes it becomes necessary to eliminate windows to reconfigure the layout of rooms. I find this most often happens with kitchens. My hubby and I tend to piece of work on onetime houses, so often, in the kitchen, at that place are doors to the basement, doors to the the dining room, doors to the hall and perchance fifty-fifty the dorsum door! And then there are v foot tall windows and quondam fashioned hot water radiators to work effectually. This leaves well-nigh three feet of usable wall space to hang cabinets on (I exaggerate a bit, but not much).

We also tend to knock downward a lot of walls to create open flooring plans, simply then you have even less wall space to work with to configure the chiffonier arrangement. The good news is, since the walls are downwards, now the low-cal from other rooms' windows tend to light upwards the kitchen, so you lot can eliminate a window and there is all the same plenty of sunlight streaming in.

Now, here'southward the dilemma- what do you exercise when the house is brick? I'm okay with taking windows out when I know I will be re-siding and no one will ever know a window used to exist there. What are your options with brick? Put a piece of wood in the opening and paint it to friction match the brick? I have always felt that it wasn't an pick to remove a window in brick because I just don't like this look. Then, inspiration struck!

In our Water Street Business firm there just wasn't a logical identify to put the kitchen cabinets unless we removed this window.

At present, we actually eliminated this window a couple of years agone. It was located in the corner of the room abreast where the tall white chiffonier now resides.

Since we tin can't become dorsum and prove you lot exactly how nosotros did this, my crawly hubby, Nib helped me practice a mock-up of the procedure. Nosotros did the mock-up in an old house (the Riverhouse) that we haven't renovated yet, so concur on to your hats, the following pictures are a little scary!! Here's an overview of the kitchen (beautiful isn't it?).

Here is the window nosotros "eliminated" in our demo.

I chose this window to do this demo on because information technology was one of the only ones in Riverhouse that still had a mini blind in it. The mini blind is an important office of this procedure, so even though it'due south dingy and gross, at least I didn't accept to buy one 🙂

Nosotros re-installed the mini bullheaded brackets to the surface of the window so that we would have the maximum amount of room left after the side by side stride, which is to install particleboard over the mini bullheaded. When we did this technique at Water Street, we painted the exterior of the particleboard blackness (You lot will see this down below). For this demo, we just installed the particleboard unpainted.

For those of you lot not super familiar with circular saws, we idea we'd also show you how to adjust the circular saw for the right depth to cutting through the plywood. In the above photograph, yous can see how far the bract is below the guide. This would be the proper depth to cut a thicker piece of forest.

Adjusting the blade is achieved by releasing the lever at the back of the saw, and so moving the bract up or downwardly depending on what y'all are doing. We wanted to cut through the plywood without cut through the sawbucks, so you tin can come across, the depth of the saw needs to be very shallow as our particle board is only 7/xvi″ thick.

Later nosotros got the correct depth (above), nosotros and then measured the opening of the window and then marked and cut the particleboard to fit. Disclosure – the window opening was REALLY crooked, so it took us four adjustments to get the particleboard to fit. Hopefully your house is much straighter than this old beauty.

We then fastened the particleboard to the stops at the side of the window with screws. At Water Street, Bill besides caulked around the edge of the particleboard to go on dust and bugs out of the house.

Here'south an overview of the window covered with the particleboard. Delight ignore the white paneling! (Hullo 1970's). This house has this great bump-out on both sides of the firm. Manifestly, I would never cover up a window in such a cool feature, but once more I picked this window because it had the blind 😐

Nosotros then installed insulation over the particleboard. At the Water Street house, the walls are 15″ thick so it was really easy to install a nice thick layer of insulation. At this house (and at most houses) the walls are a standard thickness, and so I removed half of the thickness of the insulation and then installed it.

Here is a shut-upward of the drywall and so installed over the installation. We used a spare piece of drywall to only give you an idea of how the window opening would disappear and you lot would have a new blank surface to piece of work on. Yous can see a glimpse of the insulation (and of course the particleboard) under the edge of the drywall.

Hither's what this window looks like from outside at present. It looks similar yous take the blinds closed, only read on because at the H2o Street house, information technology looks even more than realistic.

At the Water Street property, showtime we installed a brand new window and then it would match the other windows nosotros replaced, and deliberately left it unlocked. Nosotros then installed a brand new mini bullheaded. Leaving the window unlocked allows for future maintenance, such as keeping the within of the window opening clean or replacing the mini bullheaded.

I'm sure we volition have to be contortionists to address these problems, but worst case scenario, we tin can simply remove the window panes, fix what needs fixing so reinstall them. I know eventually the mini blind volition suffer from dry rot, but the good news in this example is that the window doesn't go much direct sunlight because it is shaded by the garage adjacent door. So, if yous're reading betwixt the lines, this window had the worst view of any in the house. The other windows have nice views of the chiliad and the Stonycreek River which runs along the dorsum yard, so it would take been a much harder decision to decide to remove one of those windows.

To finish the kitchen walls, on the inside we cutting a sheet of particleboard to fit the opening and painted it black on one side. From the outside, doesn't it merely expect like the window is open? You are looking right at the particleboard.

Simply like in the mock-upwards, we then insulated the opening that was left on the interior side. Over all of this, nosotros drywalled, painted and finished the kitchen.

Right where the refrigerator will go, the window is nevertheless there, you only tin't encounter it!

On the exterior we have what looks like a perfectly normal window, with the blinds open (and no lights turned on). On the inside we have a consummate kitchen with room for a refrigerator. Exercise you lot have a state of affairs like this at your business firm? Will this help yous to solve the trouble? Let me know!

If you would similar my Free Printable on "How to Buy a Business firm, and non a Lemon", y'all tin find it hither. I hope you enjoyed this postal service and once again I would similar to give thanks Christy from the bottom of my centre for allowing me to share this post with y'all, her awesome readers!

Cheers!

Melony @ sledgehammerqueen.com

pivot this for afterward!