When we moved into our house, well, a bit after, let’s be honest, we noticed some bulging areas around window frames in two of our bedrooms. I thought it was weird, and then forgot to ask K to really check them out. Then, as we were painting the nursery I noticed again that around the window frame was bulging in places. K checked it out, and it was water damage.
K had to cute away the old sheetrock to see how deep the water damage went. As he was cutting it away we were praying that it didn’t go as deep as the wood framing, pretty much holding our breaths.
Thankfully, the wood framing was good, but the builder, or previous owners, someone had used particle board as a spacer to fill the gap between the frame and the sheetrock, to keep it level. The particle board got wet, and it had absorbed and expanded (of course) and then caused the sheetrock to pop out, and water damage to spread.
K had to tear out the water damaged sheet rock and spacers, replace the old sheetrock and sheetrock edging with new, and had to do it on both sides of the window. K used water resistant sheetrock just as an extra layer of protection to help prevent this from happening again. I’m so glad we did this (K did this, let’s be honest, I just took photos) while getting the nursery ready. The music room has the same issue but we’ve already painted and redone that whole room. :[
K just used some leftover cedar that we had for the wood spacers, which is a HUGE step up from the particle board. Seriously, particle board? No.
K then went to town putty-ing, sanding, and texturing. It took forever to dry, and was a long process. He’d putty one day, then the next, if it was dry, he’d sand. Then he’d re-putty, repeat.
He did this cycle for about 5 days, until it was all done (FINALLY!) He was then able to finish and texturize the wall, and clean up the mess from all of that sanding.
The dogs felt quite forgotten the entire time. We tried letting them in, but they’d run off with the pieces of sheetrock he tore out, so they just looked at us all sad from the other side of the baby gate. Occasionally whining or putting their paws through to reach to us. It’s adorable and almost always makes me cave and let them in.
After it was finally all done and painted (You’ll get to see photos of that when we do a nursery reveal….sometime) K used some clear, latex based silicone (paintable) to seal around the window frame to keep moisture from going into the cracks and ruining the sheetrock. We, mostly him, just has to do this in the music room too still, but this room is done! I’m so glad he knew what he was doing, because I was absolutely no help, haha.
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