Just realised that I posted this out of order .. Kind of like a badly edited Tanantino film. So just pretend you didn't see the result in the previous post and act surprised/in awe when you see the final result.
It took us/me a long time to decide what to do - do we tile the window sill or do we chuck down a board? As you can see from the title (or from the previous post which you didn't read) we went with the board option.
As I found a windowboard sounds impressive. But it's really just a flat piece of wood with a rounded (bullnoze) side to it. The options are expensive hardwood or MDF. As MDF is essentially glorified cardboard and this was going to be fairly close to water and we all know what wet cardboard is like, we went with a 3rd option - a bullnozed piece of wood that I think was originally intended for furniture. The guy at B&Q suggested we give it a try and the size fit the frame. It was about half the price of the other board and 2/3 of the width - which was a bit too thick for my liking.
Now as I've read when doing my research - people typically get the window board installed while the window frame areas is being plastered so it fits in nicely. We didn't plan this one out so it's going in afterwards - less common but not unheard of ...
The wood came untreated and was knottier than a little 4 year old I know, so the first step was to put on a knotting solution. This prevents any sap in the knots from leaking through the paint and ensures a nice finish in the end. 2 coats was apparently enough.
Next came the primer/sealer. This provides a good base for the final gloss coat. But that is a ways away. I went with Dulux for many reasons - but mostly because it was on sale at Wickes.
After the wood was primed, I cut out the notches for the end surrounds. Don't ask me why everyone does this with windows as it does seem a bit odd. Maybe window boards used to be more integrated into the frames/windows. Anyway, it was the look that we wanted so we did it.
The ends were re-rounded and a second coat of primer/undercoat went on. The boards in the background are skirting - best to take care of it all at once. But that at risk of going off on a tangent and spoiling yet another blog, I'll save that for a future post. Pretend you never saw them.
To install the windowboard, I drilled 4 holes in the base and filled them with brown wall plugs. I then put some GripFill on the base and screwed everything down.
As a final step (for this post at least), I got out my super duty, high performance, Type-R, professional, max strength wood filler. What does this wonderful stuff do? It fill wood, but better. And yes, I do think I got done in by the packaging. It smelled super strong too.
This was used to fill in the screw holes and the bit around the edges of the window.
And there you have it. We can all be board of windows now ...
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