We've put this project off for too long. Our daughter's bedroom has a serious issue. Technically, it's not a bedroom, because it doesn't have the second exit point required by code.
Through a feat of impressive, intellectual gymnastics, our predecessors saw fit to completely surround this room while installing an addition. They sealed up an exterior window which was on a wall, now part of an interior mini hallway to the office / family room area. The room found itself marooned in the center of the house, with no second exit, no emergency egress.
We didn't think about it when we bought the house, it never came up. The room has plenty of natural light from a skylight. However, without a ladder or a jet-pack, it's useless as an escape window. Unfortunately, our daughter is still to young for a jet pack.
Maybe that Baman rope-shooter thing?
The silly thing is, the room did come with a rescue ladder, supposedly to escape through the skylight. Smart eh?
Nope. Not smart. Stoooooopid.
It's flame broiled too.
What mental giant thought this type of ladder could be helpful for our single story home? This is a thing you use to climb down, not up. How the hell are you supposed to attach this damn thing 15 feet up? Idiots.
We've come up up with a solution. The closet is on an outside wall; we can put a window there! Not perfect, but a solution nonetheless. It's a fairly decent sized walk-in (4' × 6'), but it's currently a sweet 7 year old tom-boy's cave of horror.
Her beat-up play kitchen, heaps of books, battalions of army men, stuffed animals of every species, assorted toys and debris currently choke the cavern. Believe it or not, there are even some clothes in the closet. It's time for some reorganization here anyway. Is a "closet remodel" even a thing?
I started pulling stuff out.
This little girl is a pack rat. She'd saved rocks, bits of wood, and remnants of toy packages along with every kid's meal trinket she had received AND the ones she inherited from her big brother. I even came across found her secret stash of Fruit by the Foot. I managed to dig down to bare carpet without the mine collapsing on me.
We wanted to instal a nice window that would match the look of windows we want to install in the rest of the house. After researching egress requirements, I found it had to be big 36 x 60 (rough opening) to give the proper size for an escape window, After ordering the window, I started laying it out, centered on the wall. Jack came in to help with the measuring.
Photo Credit: AZ DIY Guy Eye in the Sky Cam
As you know, there's not a single, straight, square wall in this home, I used a level to lay out the project on the wall. Windows don't care about straight walls, they want everything plumb and level if they're going to work properly. Picky bastards.
Look kids, no bald spot yet!!!
It was going to be big. Damn big. The whole back wall was going to be window. Jeeze.
The shelf / hanger bar was going to have to go, which meant the budget was climbing already.
Can you mount a closet rod to glass on one end?
Of course, when Gracie noticed her DIY Dad had written measurements on her wall in pencil, she asked if she could get in on the act, only inside the rectangle.
I left her and the pencil alone for a while while I grabbed a sandwich and put my feet up for a bit.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm ethically bound to let you know, it was a damn good sandwich.
Apparently, I also left her alone with access to painter's tape, scissors, frosted tape and a Sharpie as well. Awww... This stuff just melts a Daddy's heart.
"Here's the plan Daddy"
It's hard to be a steely-jawed, macho-man, nail-driving bad-ass when you come face to face with this sort of scenario. You don't see the seasoned crew of This Old House stopping work to give each other a big old hug, but that's what had to happen on this project.
I think that's a double-headed hammer I'm wielding. Excellence.
After a trip to IKEA for a cheap, temporary, rolling clothing rack to keep her clothes hanging, we emptied the rest of the closet. Her new closet will be the dining room for a while.
Gracie insisted that she be a part of the demo. After all, it was her closet and she is a DIY chick.
The old "pull the crow bar towards your face" trick eh? Sometimes, there was a bit of a height challenge for my little helper.
Although I'd scored the paint edges prior to prying the cheapo, chipboard parts off the wall there were no nice edges left. This closet had clearly been painted with a running start and sloshing a bucket of paint from 10 feet away as if slopping pigs. There are so many glops and runs in the paint job that I'm going to have to do a bunch of work to get it in remotely decent shape.
Oddly, all the shelf weight was carried by finishing nails and paint holding the shelf to the wall, no decent fasteners at all. Weird that it survived over 35+ years.
At least finishing nails make for easy demolition.
There's plenty of fun still to come on this project.
There will be demo and re-framing of the exterior wall to create the opening for the new window. It's going to require some exterior work, including siding, trim, and even some plumbing to move an exterior hose bib (faucet), There will be texturing, calking and painting (oh joy). New window trim will be installed inside and out. Finally, some sort of closet organization system that won't require a hanger rod to be mounted on the new window pane.
The new window install is going to be a first for me. I'm looking forward to the challenge.