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1 In Before & Afters/ The Moving Chapters

Chapter 15: Out with the old and in with the new. Windows and doors addition.

As soon as we fell in love with our new home we knew the windows and doors needed to be upgraded.
Although I swoon over vintage everything, the original 1955 windows had served our new home well in their 60 years of being a part of this house.
I imagined they had heard a million rain drops against their glass and that the doors had swung open in joy and slammed shut in a rush.
Sentimentally I believed the worn wooden windows had bravely protected the house from sixty years of windy blustering winters and had reflected hundreds of pink summer sunsets.
But, they still had to go.
As much as I knew brand new windows were going to update the overall look of our home and be more economical during our long Canadian winters, I hate to be the one to make the decision to change something that is original to a home. Also, windows and doors are expensive and I would rather spend those dolla bills on pretty interior things and more pillows for my collection.
In this case though, these windows and doors had had their glory and they needed to be upgraded.
So I shook my head of all romanticism and got crazy excited to pick new doors and windows for our new home.
I mean, anything would make a huge difference when this was the state of our front door.
..and back door.
Our friend left us a giant love note on our old worn front window on our ten year wedding anniversary, and it was kind of ironic.
 We had once planned to go away for our decade anniversary. But when our ten year anniversary arrived, we decided that our gift to each other would be a trip to the window shop instead. Our tropical vacation would have to wait. 
Even the baby was depressed about this idea. 
Once our vacation fund had been relocated to the “window budget” and ordered up, we just had to sit back and wait for them to be delivered.
Truth be told, the day the windows and doors arrived was probably the most exciting day during our entire renovation this far. Proof that we knew we made the best decision. Replacing all five doors and twelve windows at once was truly a fabulous investment for our whole family — despite no hot vacations in our near future and this weekends forecast of -20 degree weather.
For our main floor windows we decided to go with a grouping of windows as apposed to the singular fixed windows our home had had for so long. This would allow each window to be opened and closed with ease. Also there is this thing called a breeze that we wanted to introduce to our home. 
 It would be quite the change after working through the hot summer months in a home where the windows on the main floor didn’t open. 
We were excited to have windows that could finally let the stink out. ๐Ÿ˜‰
Although little hands wanted to help with this part, we hired a family contractor and friend to help with the demolition of our windows and doors and the installation of the new ones. Besides, we weren’t about to mess around with safety of our vacation fund.
Here is our contractor friend Al Ward, doing what he does best, surrounded by our mess.
The living area of our home looked like this before the new windows were installed.
The men removed the heavy 60 year old windows and installed the new ones in two days time.
We only stopped to play “fast food drive thru window” for a few minutes. ๐Ÿ˜‰
It was amazing how the house immediately looked updated with the new shiny windows.
I chose windows that had a grid within them but only on the top half, the bottom half is a plain glass and lifts upward on the inside. When open there isn’t a double layer of grid, making the overall aesthetic simple and not busy.
At the front of the house we replaced two front doors, two large windows and a linear garage window.
During the day of install, everyone who drove by our little estate slowed right down to take in the new view  of the outside of the house. 
On the inside of the house we still had a lot to do. 
The three upstairs windows were taken out and new windows were installed in our bathroom and two bedrooms.
At the back of our house a set of double doors were installed, another entry door, two windows flanking it and four basement windows.
Here is a bit of the before and during…
 
Who knew that getting nice new clean windows would make such a big BIG mess?
Yep. Replacing windows and doors proved to be a heavy lifting and messy task.
See??
Sadly, our yard looked like this for a little longer then we would have liked.  Eventually we stopped with some other projects and took a few trips to our local restore and city dump before the neighbours could complain to the authorities. ๐Ÿ˜‰
We will show you more of our after photos in a later post, but here is a little peek at our new back door which will be our families main entrance.
We are loving all of the new windows, best of all the kids bedrooms now feel bright, updated and safe.
We still have two windows to replace on the upstairs level of our home. They are fairly unnoticeable from the front view of our home though. Really we have left them for now, because our home’s five year plan includes building a second story and/or peaking our roof. We will hopefully incorporate new windows into that design when the time comes, I can hardly wait for the before and after photos of THAT project.
For now though, during the winter months, we have moved our projects indoors  and are currently working on our kitchen, updating two bathrooms, our mudroom, trimming out all the new windows and a plethora of other projects. Basically, just picture half done projects and piles of tools in every room of our home and then you will have a good idea of what we are up to.
 
Lets just put these before and after pictures side by side for a minute though, shall we?  It will give us a momentary sense of accomplishment and perhaps motivate us to keep going.
  
OK, that was fun. 
๐Ÿ˜€
Now back to doing a million things at once. 
Can’t wait to share with you guys our kitchen progress next. It’s been a fun longgggggggg task. Everyone who has lived through a kitchen renovation KNOWS.

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  • Jen @ RamblingRenovators
    February 24, 2016 at 3:53 am

    Your vacation fund windows are looking good ๐Ÿ˜‰ That is a lot of windows and doors but I'm sure, in a few months time, when we're on the verge of summer and you want to open the windows and let the breeze flow through the house, you're going to know you made the right decision.