I See the Light!

Adding a window in the family room.  Our family room looked so different back then, huh?!  When we started this family room renovation, we put "Add a new window" in the bonus projects category. Chris and I both really wanted to see it happen since it would add light to the cave-like corner and balance to the existing sliding glass door.  After calling around to a lot of different window companies, no one would do it for us.  "Oh, you want to add a new window?  Not just replace a window?"  It was as if I was speaking a foreign language.  Finally, I found a contractor who would do it and when he came over to give us an estimate, we held our breath.  "$550."  We were so excited about that price that included the new window.  That fit our budget perfectly, since we were doing so many things like electrical work ourselves, and we were anxious to see our vision come to pass.

Fast forward a few weeks and the window STILL isn't done.  We are still waiting on the final glass to come in after it was cut to the wrong size initially (the good news is the price has dropped to $475), but we couldn't wait any longer to show you.  Especially since, the overall look won't change that much with the real glass in--although, the temperature sure will.  Single pane=Cold.

Which is lightyears away from where we started:

We still have some work to do, obviously, but over the past few weeks, this window has gone through lots of changes itself.  I teased a few photos of the window being cut out on our facebook page a couple weeks ago, but for the sake of documentation, here's how it went down:

Our contractor (who worked for Advanced Window Products, but did other window-ing on the side...like cutting out new windows) more accurately measured for the window we wanted:

Took a razor blade and cut around the shape and then hammered it out:

Cut and stared. Cut and stared:

He was at this stage for a long time.  There is a lot of reinforcing that has to happen in this stage.  He built a new header and lots of other things behind those walls which made us feel better about hiring someone instead of attempting to do it ourselves:

At last we saw the light:

More light.  More cutting.  More reinforcing.

And then, for awhile, things stayed boarded up while we waited for glass.  Our contractor, David, did come back and sheet rock the whole thing so we could get it painted in the meantime.  So now, our family room has the extra light and balance we were looking for:

There is a lilac bush right outside of the new window that I am anxious to watch bloom--which may end up blocking all that light.  We'll have to see when and trim it down or relocate it a few feet away if we need to.

Here's hoping things wrap up by the end of this week. We are now in week 4 of this project and I am feeling it.  I am also starting to forget how we used to spend our evenings--what on earth did we do!?  Ah well, ultimately, it is worth it to us.  Is there anything better than extra sunlight streaming into a room? How do you spend your evenings?  Anyone else watch politics or The Bachelor with the sound of a saw in the background?