Better Living Through Windows
Hold on to your seat! There has been a great leap in progress at our job site over the past two weeks! The windows are in, and the house now has a door and a lock and a new relationship between indoors and out.
The new windows for this addition (and for one existing bedroom and the kitchen) were tremendously expensive, constituting close to 10% of the total cost of the project. They are dual-pane so that we can meet California’s Title 24 energy standards. We went with the manufacturer recommended by our contractor. When we were taken aback by the estimate, he got another bid from the second best manufacturer, in his book, and the difference was so small as to be meaningless, with all that was at stake with the order arriving exactly as expected. Once you have waited 12 to 16 weeks for an order, you can’t go back and have them redo anything. So it was an exciting day when they finally arrived on site!
This is just part of the order—the casements for the bedrooms. They’re all made from Douglas fir, but they are destined to be painted. These were soon primed around the edges of each assembly, like you see on the awning window below, and in a day or two they started to install them.
When the first awning window was installed in the bedroom, it was exciting to rush over and see it that afternoon. But to be honest, it was a little underwhelming! The window looked so small! We were so used to the nice, big, clear openings, and suddenly there was a window there, blocking the view!
Look at the difference here—the contractor measured when we were talking about the let-down effect, which he sensed too. The 18-inch high opening became just 10 inches of glass, and divided by muntins on top of that! But we knew they looked right in the drawings, proportions-wise, AND what choice did we have, so we had to trust that everything would look good once it progressed!
The next day they installed a few more units. Now we were getting somewhere! Moving a chair into the nook made it clear right away how pleasant the windows were and what we were getting out of the commitment we’d made to the ideas behind this room: that the nook would be completely surrounded by windows, that the corner window would be a great place to sit, etc., that the whole thing would be an antidote to looking across the driveway at that flat view of the ugly wall of the neighbors’ house for the past seven years!
Below are side by side views of the casement windows with the screen fully retracted (left) and pulled halfway down (right). We opted for interior screens so that from inside, we’d be looking at the window, not at a screen (except when they’re needed). We got the retractable screens so that, even though the windows open out for more interior flexibility, we can push them out and close them with traditional latches rather than with a crank (not a fan of the cranking action!).
I also think that it looks nicer outside not to have screens obscuring the windows. For the old windows, though, where they are on the outside, we’ll at least get wood-frame instead of aluminum-frame screens at some point. Yes, wood-frame screens are a bungalow thing!
Aaaaah, look at that! Now it all made sense. There is even a back door and a lock! The house was officially buttoned up. I mean, as long as you don’t count the living room windows covered in plywood because their hardware is out at the metal refinisher. Or the dining room windows that were removed so that they can be reinstalled straight in the wall to correct some serious settling. Right now, the back of the house looks better than the front.
The next thing that happened, soon after, was the arrival of insulation! So for now the house is certainly not green or shingled, but rather pink and fluffy! These walls have never had insulation before, so it’s about time. They’ll be able to install plywood sheathing on the outer walls and drywall (in the new and altered areas) on the interior pretty soon now, and then we’ll really be getting somewhere. Maybe we’ll even get our house back in habitable condition one of these months.
