Replacement Windows!

I apologize in advance for the crappy photo quality on some of the “before” shots.  My phone camera had a really hard time adjusting for the brightness.  Today I smartened up and used my DSLR.

Yesterday, 3 men from Rite Window came to install our replacement windows.  They replaced the 2 crank-outs in the dining room:

        

        

They replaced the small crank-out in the living room with a non-opening picture window [the frame was too narrow to convert to a sash window]:

        

They replaced the 2 crank-outs in the girl cave [my before pics were so bad they were useless]:

        

And they replaced the 2 crank-outs in the master bedroom:

        

Woohoo!  The only one they didn’t get to yesterday was the large 3-panel one for the living room.

The best part about having sash windows in the dining room is that the new cat door I bought fits perfectly!  It’s for fat cats [like Darwin, our bruiser, who’s not really fat, just really big]:

       

        

We like that it has 4 settings, including “in only”, which will be handy if they decide NOT to come in when we leave for work or go to bed!  That way, when they do come in, they’ll be stuck inside until we unlock it [although hubby and I are still debating whether we WILL ever leave for work or bed while they’re still outside].  Now I just have to finish building the connector that will lead from the window to the catio.

Today, 2 of the men from Rite Window came back and installed the huge 3-panel window in the living room.  Apparently it was dropped off last night [unbeknownst to us] in our neighbor’s yard – sorry Kathy!

Within a half hour things progressed from old, 4-window crank-out mess to movie-theater sized hole in our house:

        

        

They had to use a sawzall to get through the metal braces supporting each of the 3 center king studs:

Crazy!  But our new 3-part window is gorgeous!  The 2 on each side open, the one in the center is a non-opening picture window:

       

We love our new windows!!!  Here’s what the house looks like from the outside now – the pic on the left is from yesterday [before they installed the large window in the living room], and the pic on the right is from this afternoon, after they left:

       

We think the new windows look really cool, even though they have remnants of the old, dark metal frames surrounding them.  We think it gives the house a cool look, better than if everything was stark white.  At some point I’m going to paint the frames of the 3 windows up near the roof white [the 3 we didn’t have replaced], but I’ll leave the outside edges metal to match the replacement windows.

The kitties were locked up for the day while the workmen were here.  Birdie had the laundry room and was quite pleased with the blanket-nests I made for her:

        

This picture makes me laugh every time I see it – it’s right when the workmen arrived:

It’s not a quality shot, but her expression is hilarious 🙂

The boys were locked upstairs in the master bath:

       

All 3 kitties were super happy to be released from jail after the workmen left each day.  There was a lot of sniffing and cautious exploration.