We Bought a House

By Christopher Miller

The supply shortages coupled with a great demand for home improvement products has made our new windows a very long and cold six month wait.

You see, the old windows on our home were charming. That old wavy glass is something that isn’t seen on many old homes these days thanks to replacement windows. Aside from some small cracks in the glass, our windows were all original to the home’s build date.

You’d walk by a window and pretend you were on a ship where the outside world was a giant wave of glass. This happens when glass begins to break down, and since these were all single-pane windows, they had more than 100 years to show their age.

Thanks to etsy and the many DIY and crafters programs out there, we opted to keep all of our old windows for future beautification projects. Our favorite is an old nine-panel window that had a left hinge causing the window to turn inwards instead of up and down.

So how did the window installation go, you may ask?

I was in shock about a few things related to the install…

One installer installing seven windows in under six hours looked like an easy task for him! Aside from the framing being off by quarters-to-halves of an inch in most places, he was very professional and knowledgeable about how to make “new windows work in old places.”

These windows are so clear I am no longer seeing waves! They have a very slight tint to keep the rooms cooler and not get as hot, so when it is a blazing 95 degrees outside, inside it may only feel like 90 (lack of air conditioning).

We kept with the charm of the old windows and the three-over-two grid pattern. Our old windows are timeless – it’s hard to come by the old styles anymore, but a modern upgrade was well worth the time spent waiting for them.

Though there is no insulation in these walls, the windows offer great soundproofing! No, I cannot hear my own blood flow through my veins, but the amount of road noise I do not hear anymore is astounding.

Unfortunately for my Dad who likes to keep them for boat anchors, there were no counterbalances in the walls that keep the windows up. These old windows didn’t have them – when the house was built, that may have been a luxury item overlooked to save a buck. A granddaughter of the previous homeowner once remarked that after seeing a picture I posted to social media last summer, she had never seen the windows of the house open before.

Lastly, from the outside it is visible that the second floor windows are new and the first floor windows are old. Maybe it is the aluminum frame from the old storm windows that gives it away. Or maybe it is the green paint on the exterior of the grid on the glass.

In time we will replace the first floor windows, but for now we will make them work.

Until next time…follow us on Instagram! @millersfarmhome