Category: Family Stuff

True to my word, I shall proceed to catch you up on some of the goings on around our place.

This time of year has been for several years running the season for home improvements. I am not sure why we tend to follow that pattern but here we are again spending lots of capital to spruce the place up.

So, this was slated the year for new entry doors and windows. We began with the back entry door which used to look like this.

This was the only old picture (from 2008) I could dredge up of it. I guess you don’t tend to take pictures in front of places that are an eye sore. I didn’t get a chance to take an intentional “before” picture because Jerry changed it out while I was doing a show. Here is the new improved back door.

We still have work to do on the back windows. They were more complicated to do because the were not built with a standard casement so we have to build that in first before replacement windows can go in.

On to the front entry door. Here is an old picture of the front door inside and out from within the last year or so.

Notice the ugly hunter green (my least favorite green) and the white porch awning support. Never knew I disliked it until Jerry replaced it with this.

I adore this red!

Jerry bought a pressure washer and washed the whole house before we started installing the new windows and wow did that make a difference. I bet it had never been done. Our house was built in 1958. We bought it in 1998 from the second owners and I assure you they didn’t do it during their time here. The house was filthy when we moved in. But I digress.

So I do have a few pictures of the front of the house from about 5 years ago versus now. This was taken in May 2011. Notice the cut stone siding in the middle? Also the dark green shutters.

December 2016:

We will probably do some sort of planting/landscaping in the front to replace the huge shrubs Jerry cut down. It definitely helps let more light into the living room now. I was quite reluctant about losing my original wood windows and there are some aspects that I miss, but overall the new ones are an improvement with more pros than cons.

We had storm windows on our old windows but they all needed re-glazing and quite a few needed new panes here and there in the sashes. The replacement windows are better sealed and by far easier to open/close and keep clean. I like that a lot. I think they look pretty nice from the outside as well. We installed these ourselves with very little trouble and saved thousands of dollars.

I was planning to write about my knitting today too but this is a pretty long post already and I need to close and serve lunch so I will save that for next time.