From the Windows…to the Walls

Before B got to be too big (and mobile), Josh and I had a few things we wanted to do around the house.  One of the big items on the “Must fix sooner rather than later” list were the windows on our house.  From the outside, they looked alright, but on the inside you could feel and easily hear what was going on outside (like, hear the guy four houses down raking his driveway).  During the winter, our house would get really cold with air seeping through, and in the summer, it was terribly hot inside the house.  Some windows had seals that were broken, so they were foggy.  They were dingy and gross to a point we couldn’t easily clean them (especially the frames), the locks were faulty and we had no screens!  All in all, I wanted them gone!

So we opted to put that at the top of our house renovation list, and called Champion Windows, as well as Window World, to get estimates.  After doing online research, we knew that Champion had high pressure sales people, but everyone that chose to go with them seemed to be really impressed with the quality of the installation and the windows themselves.  Window World had 50/50 reviews, but their sales rep was not nearly as high pressure, so that in itself was nice.  The only thing we didn’t like about Window World was that all of the items included in the Champion quote were extra costs/fees with Window World.  Based on everything we heard, we opted to move forward with Champion and D. Mack Scaife (if you’d like his info, let me know).  We had a feeling we’d go with Champion to start with, but wanted to hear what they had to say.  The sales pitch took THREE hours – he was very thorough.  That night, we decided to move forward when he threw in a new door to our patio (because the guys who flipped the house did a TERRIBLE job installing the door and it constantly stuck to the frame, no matter the season).  It was just a nice added bonus. 🙂

A few days later, we had someone out to officially measure all 24 windows that were going to be replaced.  They indicated in about 6-8 weeks, they’d be able to come back and install the new windows.  The were planning on having the job complete in one day, but said it could spill over into two days.  We were fine with that and waited for our new windows.

Install day came and as we’d read, the Champion team did an excellent job removing the old and installing the new windows, and even making things look a little better than they did before on the exterior.  They cleaned up after themselves and all we had to do was move our furniture back in place.  We are completely happy with the look of the new windows, and the fact that it doesn’t get nearly as hot (or cold) in our house as it did before they were installed.  It was almost an immediate difference for the climate in our house!

My only complaint was that after the install was complete, Josh received a call from Mack indicating that we still owed him 2-3 referrals.  I’d given him one, because I had a friend looking at replacing a couple windows (I also gave her our Window World contact’s info too).  No where had we promised him referrals – because it’s so easy to pull those out of my rear end.  We reviewed the Marketing Agreement that we signed, and that was not one of the things we’d agreed to (keeping a sign in our yard for 30 days, write a testimonial letter or something indicating we’d seen a decrease in energy bills, etc. – all things we agreed to, referrals were not).  He was pretty insistent that we had, but Josh and I pulled out our paperwork as did Mack (after he called us – not before to check to see if this was a valid thing we’d missed) and it was then he realized we were correct.  He backed down, but it left Josh and I riled up.  Not cool.

All in all, we’re happy with our windows and it definitely got our neighbors talking…haha!

In addition to the windows, we brought Chris from Blue Square Construction to do a few things around the house.  Chris came out last year to work on B’s room, as well as put crown molding up in the dining room.  We were very happy with his work, we knew he was the perfect choice for the new projects we had in mind.

We loved the look of the crown molding int he dining room so much, we decided we wanted to put some in our master bedroom, as well as paint.  We picked the color Refuge, by Sherwin Williams, after seeing it in one of their online publications that Josh received in his email.

And in keeping with our love of green, we chose to use the Behr Rejuvenate color to freshen up B’s bathroom.  It was one of the colors we looked at using for our master bathroom, but we ended up going with a darker color (Mother Nature) instead.  The lighter green, we figured would be better for a kid’s bathroom – and we were right!  In addition to the new paint color, we had Chris add some bead board to give it a little extra something.  We love it!

The color looks a little yellowish in this picture, but I promise it’s not.  I’m just too lazy to re-take a photo, because it’s taken me this long to get to writing – I’m not putting off the post anymore!

And lastly, we had Chris paint the living room and add some walls near the steps, so when the time comes we can easily put baby gates up (with B rolling from back to belly, and belly to back – we need to be prepared!). We went with Sherwin Williams Universal Khaki to give the room a bit more oompf.  We liked the slightly darker color, and feel it works well with the colors in the room.  It was great having Chris’ team paint the living room, as there’s no way we could have done this ourselves!

The added walls also give a little bit more comfort as you’re walking down the stairs.  Before, there was nothing next to the first step, so it made it very awkward when you were going downstairs!  Now, while the handrail doesn’t fully extend up – the wall acts as a guide until you get to the handrail.

Now that we have the walls there, Josh and I have talked about getting a custom built in bookshelf between the walls, and mounting the TV a little higher up on the wall.  It’s on the to-do list, but it’ll be awhile before we get there.  With all the stuff we had done all at once, we’re going to take a little breather and enjoy the newly updated house!