New Windows!

We had 60 yeard old windows in the house in aluminum frames that were loose and the calking holding the window in place was falling out. If someone had pushed real hard, some of these windows would have fallen out they were so bad. So this year, I decided to get new windows. We chose to do the install in two segments due to the congestion of stuff in the house - which has to be moved 3 feet away from the windows - inside and out - for the installers to have a place to work. The first installment was about 3 months ago before the hot weather. The last 3 windows installation took place yesterday.

It sure took a lot of work to get the house ready for both installations! We have been home organizing to install new windows in very congested areas of the house. We have been organizing the office for about 2 months. My live-in cannot throw anything away and we get into a huge fight every time I try and get him to get rid of anything. So rather than fighting - I allowed him to make the office so untidy that I could hardly get in and out anymore. It's funny that you have no idea what it is going to be like to live with someone until you've been with them for a while. We've been living together for 10 years and it's slowly gotten worse over the 10 years. It's a serious problem when you live in a small home.

So anyway, this weekend was spent moving the computers and computer tables away from the windows. There was a LOT of stuff in there and it's now sitting all over the living room. And the outside was bad too. We had a woodpile to move, tables with dye pots, microwave, etc. on them. And what added insult to injury was that it was about 100 degrees outside when we were doing this stuff. But it's done, yay! Now all we have to do is get the house back together. There has been some really good things come out of this whole mess. I will not allow him to get the office in that state again. We will get rid of paper and equipment that is unused and just piling up. I can finally clean the carpet in there! And the windows look superb. Clean white and lovely.

BTW, this brings me to Home Depot windows. The windows themselves, of medium grade, have a lifetime guarantee on them which can be passed on to the next owners. The installers were meticulous, cleaned up after themselves and did a wonderful job on the windows. My complaint is with the scheduling department. On both window appointments they double booked in our time slot. And although we had our appointment for about six weeks, they still booked over us. I was so mad yesterday morning I was ready to spit bullets at the girl. This is the second damn time they have done it to us. When I called her to confirm our appointment, because they neglected to do that (AGAIN), she says "I'm so sorry Ms. Brunston, but it seems we have double booked your appointment and we have no one to do it today. Would Wedneday be a good day?"
That's when I blew up! I said "No, it will not be a good day. You cannot do this to us again! We both stayed home from work today for this install as well as spending 2 days getting ready for it. You WILL fix this." And she did. She wound up cancelling someone else I assume. Which I'm really sorry about but damn it, serious time and money effort was involved here and I was not going to be put off. Jim was insistent that if they didn't keep the appointment yesterday that we would cancel our order and get the windows elsewhere. Luckily it didn't come to that. I did not want to wait for another eight weeks to schedule the order with someone else. They have to custom make your windows and it takes them quite while to make them. Anyway, it's all done now and we have all new dual paned windows in the house. There's only one window left and that's a garage window that faces the street. We might do that one ourselves one of these days just so the glass and lines within the glass match the rest of the house.