Message from Sara: You may have noticed I changed the format of the blog. I couldn’t get the original header to work with this photo of our house:

I could not find a setting that would allow this image to be compatible with all monitor sizes, so its been trashed.

Also, last night I accessed this page on my gen1 iPad, and the images from different posts are moving around. This issue did not occur when using my work desktop computer, or my laptop at home, so dunno whats happening there. Those of you who are accessing this page from your iPad’s, have you noticed that pictures are not where they are supposed to be? i.e. a Shower post photo showing up in the Bay Window post, or vice/versa?

Still new to this whole blogging thing, so bear with me!

Also, here is a pic of Jinx being cute (pretend you don’t know how mean she is):

Mike here (with little edits by Sara).  I just wanted to start by saying that bay windows are beautiful.  This window was a big selling point for this house, even after the inspection, it really makes the living room brighter.

We knew that this window was going to give us some problems, and we knew that the flashing was going to be one of the first projects we addressed with this home. The flashing on the exterior of this bay window was incorrectly installed and was one of the top priorities to fix from our home inspector.  There were holes in the caulk, which was letting water seep inside anytime it would rain/snow/hail/lightly sprinkle.

The first weekend that my parents (Arlyn and Paula) came up from Iowa to visit, my Dad and I ripped off the flashing.  We found a layer of rotten wood inside.

Luckily, at least 2/3 of the supporting beams are still strong enough to hold up the weight of the window.

My Dad and I measured several times, then used some of the wood the previous homeowners left for us in the rafters of the garage to make replacements.

My Dad was kind enough to bring all of the tools necessary for this, including a saw table!

Verlo men forever live by the Boy Scout motto (“Always be prepared”)! We got all of the wood secured as well as we could, which was fairly simple.

The hardest part of this job was getting the old flashing into place.

The top side of it just did not want to squeeze between the wood and the bottom of the window.  Eventually, we got it as far in as we could, called it good and sealed EVERYTHING with brown silicone.

There are also screws sticking through the outside but seeing as how we will likely have to replace the entire window someday, we are okay with the fact that it is properly sealed.   

Now all we need to do is give it a fresh coat of paint, and we can forget about the bay window until our finances support replacing the whole thing!