Burns Avenue House thru CERT Program

I joined the CERT (Central Certification Program) which is a collaboration among Ramsey County, Hennepin County, the City of Saint Paul, and the City of Minneapolis to "promote market growth and increase the competitiveness of qualified small businesses." Participation in CERT streamlines the process of bidding on and contacting for work on renovating government-owned houses in those three jurisdictions. The centralized certification process, which cuts down on having to certify separately for each job and replaces it with an annual certification, makes it much easier for a small business like mine to access contracts available with Ramsey County and the City of Saint Paul. My shop is a one-man operation. I don't have any office staff to help me with all the paperwork involved in getting certified as a responsible bidder for every job. Only having to do it once a year truly makes it even possible for a one-man shop like mine to bid on window replacement and renovation jobs at the City and County. It has worked out well for me.

The first job I got in the CERT program was a house on Burns Avenue on Saint Paul's East Side. I replaced 17 windows and repaired __ more. This photo shows some of the windows in my shop after construction, but before applying primer paint. I always prime my windows with oil-based primer before delivering them to my customers. I do offer the service of painting the windows if the client supplies the paint to match other windows at the house, but most clients prefer to do the painting themselves. Especially with a large project like the Burns Avenue house, the clients usually have already contracted with a professional painter.

I don't know if it is visible with the scale of this photo, but all my windows are designed to shed water without caulking. My clients never have to caulk their windows, which is one of the reasons for the popularity of my business. I have a video showing how this process, that was designed in my shop, works.

This photo shows the windows installed at the Burns Avenue house. The windows, except for the large picture window, have four "lights." Lights are just the number of separate windowpanes there are in a window. I do not add a fake cross piece of wood to just make it look like four lights. I build the window with four integral wood members with stops so that four separate glass panes are rabbited in to create the look you see on the photo. This is the way historic windows were made, and my business is authentically re-creating those historic windows.

I do replace doors as well, but was not selected to replace the doors on this particular project.

Poly Carbonate Storm Windows

The sister of a friend who lives in Kerkhoven, Minnesota called to ask Tom to create some shatterproof storm windows for her screen porch. When she built her screen porch, she did not realize that living in the woods with the strong winds that sometimes blow in off the prairie would mean that occasionally a fairly decent-sized tree limb would break thru her screens causing her to have to replace the screens regularly. She took to putting up a stranded plywood covering over her screen porch on the north side. But that blocked her beautiful view and made the porch and the kitchen next to it too dark on cloudy days.

She had an idea to install storm windows over the screens - ones that could be removed in the summer months when she wanted a breeze in the screen porch. But the storm windows would have to not shatter if a medium sized tree limb hit them in a heavy wind. She asked Tom for his advice and he suggested poly carbonate windows. They would scratch, but they would not break. And they would let the light into her porch and her kitchen.

These photos show Tom measuring for the new storms (left in September) and delivering them (right in November). They needed a little bit of shaving off on some of the edges in order to get them to fit in the real world. Window frames are not always level and plum - which was the case with these windows.

These photos show Tom installing the windows on the client's screen porch. Tom's friend was the helper who kept the screws organized and available. The windows were held in place with stainless steel button clips that can easily be turned to the side to remove the storms in the summer, and then turned back into place when the storms are returned for winter.

The client called Tom a few weeks later to say she loves her new storm windows and was surprised at how much brighter it made her kitchen. She had two corner windows in the kitchen around the corner from the screen porch so she was not expecting that one change on the porch to have so much of an effect on the sunlight that came into her kitchen. It is always heart-warming to know that you have made someone's life just a little bit brighter.
A job well done!

1906 Crescent Band Saw

Tom was the proud owner of a 1906 Crescent band saw until one of the other "makers" in his shop bought a bigger one. The Crescent allowed a 26" wide piece of wood to be cut. The new Neighborhood Wood Shop band saw allows a 36" piece wide piece of wood to be cut. Because of the thinness of the blade, a band saw can cut curves and a radius in a wide piece of wood. For this reason, it is indispensable in making arched-top windows and doors.

The 1906 Crescent was adopted by one of Tom's friends who owns a painting business. The Crescent Machine Company manufactured band saws like this from at least 1902 until 1940 when the company was sold to Rockwell, a division of Rockler Companies. This particular 26" band saw was manufactured 21 of the 38 years under the control of the Crescent Machine Company and are still highly prized as valuable vintage machines. Today Rockwell no longer makes band saws this large; the new manufacturers of larger sized band saws are Silver Manufacturing Company and Northfield Woodworking Machinery.

This saw excels at cutting curves (making a radius), resawing very thick lumber, and cutting logs into lumber.


The photo below shows Philipp, one of the other makers in the wood shop, and Phillip's nephew, using the 1906 Crescent band saw.  

Porch Finials on Summit

One of Tom's customers asked him to recreate eleven (11) large finials on his exterior porches (first and second floor) and exterior hand railing. Tom owns a lathe and he was happy to have an out-of-the-ordinary job to do. He made the finials out of cypress wood, because cypress has natural oil and exterior finials made from an oily wood will last at least three times longer than ones made of pine. It took him 3 weeks in his Selby Avenue shop to turn the finials. The photo below shows the finials after they were turned; the last item before delivery is always priming the wood with oil paint.

When they were delivered, his customer loved the new finials; he was very proud of them. Here they are sitting on Ed's Summit Avenue porch. There are two porches on the front of this house - one on the second floor and one on the first floor - with turned spindle railings on both porches.

The spindles were mostly in good shape, but the finials had split and cracked due to weather damage over the 100 years of the home's existence. Tom watched as his customer had the second floor porch floor (which was also the roof of the first floor porch) torn off and replaced, the railings removed, repaired, and replaced. And finally Tom's beautiful eleven (11) finials were placed on top of the newell posts. They were only primed and not painted when this photo was taken.

And here are the finials after they were installed and painted.

More Windows from TC Woodworks

Tom is painting a replacement storm window in his shop in Saint Paul in this photo.  As a general rule, most customers get their windows primed and then have them painted using the paint that exactly matches the rest of their woodwork.  This window does not have the glass in yet, but Tom does install window glass.


Below Tom made an eyebrow window for one of his clients. It looks deceptively easy to make, but the whole upper part which encompasses what would normally be three sides of an ordinary window is one continuous curve. This type of curve must be created on a band saw, which he has at his St. Paul shop. Don't try this at home.

These two give you a sample of what TC Woodworks can do - from the ordinary to the "more complicated than it looks" windows in many historic homes in St. Paul and environs.

Below are some more finished windows sitting in the wood shop, primed but not yet painted. The customer can get windows delivered either primed so the customer can do the painting, or painted by TC Woodworks.

Margaret Street Rehabilitation Project

Ramsey County is rehabilitating a beautiful Victorian house on Margaret Street in Saint Paul's Daytons Bluff Historic District, and I was fortunate enough to get the contract to replace the windows and a few interior doors.

On the right is a 13-lite window in the living room that used to contain colored glass, but we could not locate a source for that today.  So, I used some historic rolled glass for lites.  The door on the left is the side entry door; an exact replica of the original door..

My portion of this project is about 80% complete, but Ramsey County keeps adding more items to my contract.  It has been a delight to work with Ramsey County ever since Kris Kujala took over as the project manager, so adding new items to the contract is not a problem.

Arched Windows on 6th Street

A friend gave me a reference to the new owner of a classic Victorian painted lady on Saint Paul's East Side.  The owner had three arched windows in the attic with dry rot and needed replacements, along with jambs, sills, curved moulding, and trim.  This job was a joy because it required me to be creative, which is something I greatly value.  This photo shows all my work installed on the house on 6th Street in the Dayton's Bluff Historic District.

And here is a close-up of the windows (the maroon you see in the arched windows are the storm windows which I also created):

Windows in production, sitting on the bench in Tom's woodworking shop.