Putting in the Giant odd-shaped Window

 The Angled Window

Now that I had my door in - it was finally time to put in the largest window.

I bought a normal double pane window designed for 2 x 4 framing from a recycled building materials store for about $40. (Look for a store like that near you if you can!) I was a little apprehensive at first about the vibration of the truck shattering the glass down the road, but after discovering that the wood studs absorb most of the vibration, then I decided I would still give it a shot with a normal window. Also consider that your spray-foam insulation will absorb vibration as well.
I bought a small roll of neoprene construction quality rubber stripping online that I had planned to wrap around the window framing before I put it in, but after the move I couldn't find it anywhere so I decided to go ahead anyway. 
The Neoprene was about $15, so if you're worried about the glass shattering then you should consider adding that into your framing before you put a window in. If the window was larger, I probably would have added in the rubber stripping.

The first step is to measure out exactly where you want your king studs for the window on the wall (I always tried to choose to put in the door and window next to a stud that I already had up). This window is pretty odd shaped - but I framed it like a square window - adding in an extra piece for the window frame after I put it in; I'll show ya later on. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the window on the ground, so here's a little drawing to show you the design.

In this photo you can see I removed the waterproofing barrier first before I cut the hole. That stud on the left is my first king stud. I planned for the width of the window cutout to be wide enough for the window itself to show entirely, and about half of the window framing to show from the outside. If you end up cutting it too big - no worries. You'll be filling in any of the spaces with spray foam anyway, and covering it with trim on the outside. Unless you want to add 5inch+ wide trim though, then cutting the hole to as close the size as you can get is best.
The window hole was a lot easier to cut out than the door, since it didn't take up the whole height of the wall. [I already put my flooring studs down by this point, which wasn't the best idea. It ended up being fine in the end but a bit of a pain to work around.]

In my case you can see I had to go through two metal studs, which run all the way to the ceiling header. At one point the hole was the perfect size for the window to fit, but the rest of the metal studs above the opening wouldn't allowing the framing for the window to fit, so I ran my angle grinder against the aluminum on the inside and tried to cut only the studs. This ended up working well, but was frustrating at best. 

The metal studs in the truck are a bit odd: One side of the stud is full metal butting up to the aluminum, where it's riveted to the wall. The other side is open, so the stud itself is actually hollow.

If you have to trim part of the studs like I did, and don't want to cut through the side, then you can run your grinder parallel to the wall, along the riveted edge of the stud, like in this picture.

 

Prepped and ready to throw in!

After the hole was cut and the metal grinded down, like we did for the door, I again covered the edge in ducktape and wrapped waterproofing barrier around the edge. 
Now that you have your kings studs on each side, your window baseplate (that fits right on top of those metal studs you cut), and a header, it's time to put in the window!

 

 I screwed a 2 x 4 through the metal into the king studs to help hold the window while I put it into place. 

 At this point after you level off the window with shims (between the window frame and the wall framing) I screwed the framing together to make it tight before I removed that extra piece on the outside.

I taped off the window trim edge before I put in the sprayfoam (it gets everywhere), and removed it before the foam set up completely. 

In this picture you can see that extra window framing piece I talked about earlier for the slanted edge (I added in an extra 2 x 4 to fill up some extra space from the outside as well).

Once you trim off the extra foam, it's time to add some trim to clean it up from the outside. I screwed through the trim into the window framing, and sealed around all of the edges with paintable window/door caulking to waterproof it all. Now it was finally time to paint the trim with my exterior paint.

So there it is! I'm so glad I went with the odd shaped window; I feel like it gave it some architectural depth it was missing. Although I wish it opened.

Thank you for reading and I hope this helps for putting in your own windows! If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Next time I'll show you how to pull down that roll-up door permanently - and what I used for my flooring. Till then!

Sincerely,

Kelli

 

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Update: April 24th, 2022

 

The window has held up perfectly the entire time - even with hammering vibrations, driving, and eventually trimming up that window sill wood on the bottom for a table.

 

Newer photo of matching the plaster edge up to the window casing

 Even with the size of this window, it doesn't seem like vibrations from driving has affected it at all. I eventually did replace the trim on the outside with treated wood, and I added extra silicone caulking as sealant. It hasn't leaked at all and works perfectly - the wood studs absorb more than enough vibration to keep the glass safe. As much as I love the shape of it, I wish it opened!