Building Window Jambs

Deputies busy responding to calls in county

The Texas County Sheriff's Department handled several calls during the last week:

June 19

--An anonymous caller reported that six dogs were tied to a tree at Wear and Highway 32. An investigating officer saw no dogs in the area.

June 20

--A 68-year-old Houston man called to report that his Prairie Road residence had been broken into causing about $350 worth of damage to a door and door jamb. The man said he suspected a 26-year-old Houston man.

June 21

--An Elk Creek woman called to report that a neighbor's dog had spooked and chased cattle on her Longview Road property. The neighbor was not home when an investigating officer arrived, but the officer reported that the neighbor would be contacted and told to control the dog or be charged with allowing the animal to run loose.

--A man called to report a break-in at a Clinton Township building on Perkins Lane.

The man, a township employee, reported that the door to the building appeared to have kicked in and that several items had been stolen, including a 4,000 watt Homelight generator valued at $1,000, a Stihl pole saw valued at $400 and a small gas can.

June 22

--An officer reported a Cabool woman called to report that two of her cattle had been run to death at her Oriole Road residence on June 17.

Two officers went to the scene and observed the dead cattle. They then went to a neighbor's Sunrise Drive residence and observed a pit bull matching the description given.

The neighbor, a 29-year-old man, was advised that he would be issued a citation for failing to control his dog, and he said he understood.

June 23

--A man called to report that the window on the door to his Highway B residence had been broken. The man reported that he suspected another man who was probably jealous.

--A man called to request an ambulance at his Highway 137 residence stating that his daughter was having mental issues.

--A Houston woman called at about 2 p.m. to request that a man and a woman be removed from her Forrest Street residence. Both people left and were advised of the 12-hour rule.

--Matthew F. Doyle, 33, of 130 Elm St. in Raymondville, was arrested and charged with third- degree domestic assault after reportedly becoming aggressive toward his 57-year-old mother.

June 25

--A 51-year-old woman, of Pine Street in Willow Springs, and a 29-year-old man, of Bradford Road in Willow Springs, each reported having their vehicles stolen during the night.

1915 Redux: Building Windows

After a long break from blogging, I felt compelled to dive back in. There have been so many projects for the last several months, I've hardly found the time to eat, sleep, go to work, and work on the house -- much less create new blog postings. However, you loyal readers (all three of you) deserve more than excuses, so here we go again -- a begin-again blog to catch you up a bit. My current project is building windows for the new kitchen and master bedroom additions we'll be starting in the next few weeks. In the tradition of Loving Old Stuff, I couldn't bear the thought of putting vinyl windows in the additions. And in the tradition of I Love To Save Money, I couldn't bear the thought (or cost) of buying wooden true divided-lite windows either. Just one of those babies (for a good one) can cost several hundred dollars each. Last August, I wrote about a couple of sets of window sashes that I rescued from going to the dump. (See my previous  Historic Windows  post.) I mentioned in that post that I had called my friend Bob Yapp  to see if I could get him to pull together enough interested people to put on a hands-on training on how to build window jambs. Window jambs are the "frames" around sashes that hold the sashes in place. After several phone calls over the course of a few months, I pestered Bob enough to get him to do a private class for me. I headed up to Hannibal, MO to Bob's Belvedere School one weekend in February, and we built the prototype window jamb that will serve as the pattern for all the double-hung jambs I will be building. Of the two types of windows I'm building (double-hung and casements), the double-hungs are the more complicated ones. Since I have my prototype to refer to for the double-hungs, I decided to start building the casements first. Casements are nothing more than a hinged door, so I reckoned I could figure those out on my own. The one change that I made to the casements is that instead of being an out-swing window as the were in the house where they used to be installed, I am converting them to in-swing windows so I can put storm windows on the outside to make them more energy efficient. They'll also weather better since they won't be directly exposed to the elements once the storm windows are installed. The picture on the left shows the three casement windows that will be installed above the kitchen sink in the soon-to-be new kitchen. The right and left units swing open, while the center unit is stationary.

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