On to the windows and doors! I’m a bit fussy (well, okay, I’m totally obsessive) about organizing pieces of the house before I start building. When I remove pieces from the sheets, I label each one and stack them together in categories. I put the smaller pieces like stairs or windows into envelopes and label them. It’s a bit of overkill, but it does two things for me. For one thing, I’ve never lost a piece of trim. The main thing however, is that when I’m ready to start on a step, all the pieces I need are right there together and I don’t have to track anyone down or dig out paints for one piece that got left behind later on.

Here’s my window and door pieces all laid out and ready to paint. Notice that they’re all in order so I know that each window has the same number of pieces for both interior and exterior.

And here they are all painted and ready to be installed. The lighter green are the exterior and the darker green are the interior pieces.

I installed the door frames first and glued together the French doors

While the doors are clamped and drying, the next step was the doublehung windows. Doublehung windows can be a bit tricky the first time you do them because it’s difficult to visualize how they are constructed. It’s easy to get the hang of them once you realize that a portion of the window frame is actually the wall.

Start with placing the U shaped frame piece around the window and trace off the interior edge so you have a painting guideline. Then paint that section of the wall around the window to match the frames. (don’t forget to paint the cross bar too)

Next, glue the acetate window to the rectangular frame using white glue. Glue the frame to the bottom of the window, lining up the crossbar and all edges evenly.

Glue on the U shaped frame around it with the opening at the bottom. Line up the edges of the U to the bottom of the frame so they are flush.

Then glue on your window sill.

Let the glue dry completely and turn the wall over to install the window on the other side. It’s the same process with one exception. This time, glue the rectangular frame to the TOP section of the window.

And that’s how to complete a double hung window!