Dining Room - Windows

The dining room windows are finally done! We had the windows replaced last October, and I just finished the curtains last week.

Here is what the old windows used to look like:

A cracked pane in one of the old dining room windows.

The old dining room windows on the front side of the house. The lower window on the left has no glass in it at all!

The view from outside. 

This is what they look like today:

The new windows!

The view from outside.

Here are the curtains! The green in the fabric matches the wall color, and the dark magenta peony flowers match our chandelier. I got the new roller shades for my birthday. It's funny how your birthday presents change into more practical things as you get older!

The side window. There is no longer a big crack in the bottom pane!

The Study Bathroom - Windows

New windows can really make a difference in a room's appearance... especially if the room is rather small and dark. The bathroom off of our study is a perfect example.

Before, the windows didn't open, and they looked like this:

The view from outside.

Not being able to open the windows would have been really hard. Even if we don't open them all that often, it's still nice to know that we have the option. 

Now, the windows look like this! These are triple-pane, awning-style windows.

This bathroom has a lighthouse/nautical theme. 

The bathroom feels so much brighter now.  Thanks, Window World for your excellent service and product!

A World of Difference: Windows

It can be difficult to preserve the original look and feel of a historic home. Though we want to do as many things as we can to keep our 1902 Victorian looking as historically accurate as we can, we knew that keeping the original windows wasn't going to work out for us. There were so many windows that had broken or missing panes, we didn't see it as an option to keep the original windows. Not to mention that the Wisconsin winter was fast approaching, and we wanted to have as much insulation between the inside and the outside of our house as we could get.

A missing corner piece of one of the old windows.

A crack in one of the old windows.

We gave Window World a call, and Art Lane came over to look at our project. I did a walk-through with him, and we came up with 26 windows that we wanted to have replaced.

Levi and Eric from Window World came to our house over a period of three days to install our new windows.  They removed the old windows, insulated the weight pockets with spray foam, and installed the new windows. They did an amazing job, and we would highly recommend them to anyone who is considering having any windows replaced.

Before: the north side

After: the north side

Most of the windows are white vinyl, but some have an oak finish on the inside to match the surrounding stops and trim. They had many options for us to choose from. We went with the colonial-style grill pattern in the top half of each of the triple-pane, double-hung windows.
Not only does our house look so different now that we don't have any broken windows, we also have the peace of mind knowing that we have a lifetime warranty in case one of the new windows gets broken.

Future blog posts about the windows will bring you on a room-by-room journey with before and after pictures of what the room looked like with the old windows, what it looked like with the new windows, and (hopefully!) what the windows look like now. I'm making all of our curtains with my new sewing machine, and as I get finished, I will post a picture of what the finished product looks like.

Keep checking back to see our progress!