Over winter, John and discussed what we wanted to invest in as our next "big project" around the house between patio, windows or carpet/trim upstairs. We decided on the patio and started making calls for that in February. Well...thanks to COVID causing me to work from home since March and suddenly look at everything with a more critical eye AND causing the cancellation of our 2-week World War II history tour in Europe, I decided we should do the windows, too!
I was able to get referrals from several neighbors and quickly got initial quotes for fiberglass casement windows from three companies who just surveyed the house from the outside and asked me a few questions over the phone. Once we picked the final one, they did do an inside measure before finalizing the quote and order.
The windows took about 2 1/2 days to install and then a fourth day when they sent a painter out to touch up some of the trim. Due to them needing to be in/out/around the first and second floors, I moved my home office from the dining room to the basement for about a week, and every person on my Zoom calls mentioned it! It's so funny how we get used to our colleagues' backgrounds and notice a difference!
The new windows look great - swapping out white for tan on the outside and white for brown on the inside. They also block out a lot more noise which is great since birds were waking me at 4 a.m. with their songs. I'm excited about the fiberglass instead of wood windows since they won't warp or require painting. And I'm excited that the interior wood trim is now white. So, as we continue to be home ALL.THE.TIME getting the rest of the upstairs trim (baseboards and doors) redone is moving up from a 2021 project to a 2020 project!
The after picture isn't a true after, because now we are going to paint the garage door trim and porch posts white, and we have already removed the porch railings to get a more clean, modern look. As for Europe, we hope to reschedule that trip for summer 2021. I was able to get cash refunds for hotels and flights, but I'm still battling to get our tour fee back as the company went bankrupt. It appears to be fraud related versus COVID related, but thanks to COVID the travel insurance company took 11 weeks to respond to my claim. Their response was "you bought your tour with a credit card so get your money from them." I have a temporary credit from my credit card and expect that it will become permanent next month.
I was able to get referrals from several neighbors and quickly got initial quotes for fiberglass casement windows from three companies who just surveyed the house from the outside and asked me a few questions over the phone. Once we picked the final one, they did do an inside measure before finalizing the quote and order.
The windows took about 2 1/2 days to install and then a fourth day when they sent a painter out to touch up some of the trim. Due to them needing to be in/out/around the first and second floors, I moved my home office from the dining room to the basement for about a week, and every person on my Zoom calls mentioned it! It's so funny how we get used to our colleagues' backgrounds and notice a difference!
The new windows look great - swapping out white for tan on the outside and white for brown on the inside. They also block out a lot more noise which is great since birds were waking me at 4 a.m. with their songs. I'm excited about the fiberglass instead of wood windows since they won't warp or require painting. And I'm excited that the interior wood trim is now white. So, as we continue to be home ALL.THE.TIME getting the rest of the upstairs trim (baseboards and doors) redone is moving up from a 2021 project to a 2020 project!
