Molly, lucky you with the easy apart windows. Mine have tenons secured with dowels, but the dowels have never been easy to remove. This post got me going and I put a final exterior coat on my window yesterday. It's a second story window so I try to do as much on the ground as I can. I'm in a race against age, mine more than the house. I may try drilling a dowel out of a rescued sash to see if I can get it apart. We are making wooden storms with tenons and dowels and repair pieces can't be much more difficult to fabricate. Can you hear my husband moaning? I think it is going to become more and more difficult to purchase anything oil based. Do you think linseed oil will also "evaporate" from the market? I know I'm starting to sound old, but I just can't completely accept the latex is better theory. Will oil based glazing compound also be banned? I think there are water based glazing compounds that do not require any wait time to skin over. I use UGL compound and it sometimes takes 10 days before I feel comfortable enough to prime over it. I'm usually ready to have an excuse for a break at that point. If you know of a better compound, please let me know. I'm sure the original poster is well on his way to complete his painting project, but I thought this site had a decent sequence of repair for a variety of old house projects. I'm sure many of us can identify with the "before" examples. It would also be nice to have input from the forum experts on the methods used on the site. Has anyone used the Multi Wood Primer mentioned on it? I think I'll order a can and try some if no one here has negative reports. I'll bet someone on the Old House Journal forum has an FPL formula for you. I can't imagine having to repaint our barn with latex paint on the next go round. I get a mental image of us crossing some border and smuggling the banned ingedients and paints back into the country. I hope people will chime in on the site I've included. If it has been discussed in the past, someone just needs to yell at me and direct me to the thread. I'm up early to finish prepping the the parting bead and stops and am praying that I have enough sash cord to finish this. Here is a link that might be useful: repair and paint old siding, etc

Regarding the Hardiplank, your husband is right by doing what he is doing. You can paint before installation or after, but obviously before would provide better coverage with minimal touch-ups at the end. Hardi sidings came out with pre-painted siding with limited colors and avail. It is concrete, so it should be primed(I believe Hardi reccomends)or minimally a high quality exterior paint. As far as courtreporter, it sounds as though you may want to contact an interior designer, or minmally go into a home center, grab up paint swatches that match your exsisting colors and then decide. Many home centers have paint computers available to homeowners to help decide on corresponding color matches.

I'll go further and say that 10" is too close to the house for something like a large pine tree or any other large growing tree. I would have them both removed. Pines and other shallower rooted trees can most definitely lift your foundation. We had to have a 25' sycamore tree removed that was about 12' from our barn. For a sycamore, that's not that large or that old, but it had already cracked one corner of the barn's slab. It cost us around $800 to do it safely, but since it was so close to the barn and only 20' from some utility wire, it was totally worth it to have a professional do it.

Pretty nearly impossible to accomplish an actual repair to splits (I take it you mean the panels) without disassembling. To get any glue to hold, the surfaces have to mate up closely and be clean. Hopefully these aren't old cracks that are full of paint, caulk and dirt. I have sometimes had success by striking the "raise" molding of the panel with a hammer and block of wood to free up the halves of the panels from their plowed slots in the sticking of the door. This allows the gap to be widened temporarily while I clean out the debris. Then the panels are brought together. I lay the door flat and apply tape to the underside of the crack, to prevent the glue from running out. If need be, small blocks for clamps can be hot-glued to the surface along either edge. I use epoxy for these repairs. Try not to glue a panel into the frame; stop the glue short of the ends. When the glue is cured, the excess can be scraped and sanded off. If you mean surface checks in the sticking of the door, then these are seasonal and may close on their own in summer. At that point, having the door fully sealed will prevent the from opening up every winter. Casey