The New Window Is In!

Earlier this week, I shared the installation of our new window in the living room in real time on Instagram, but I am here to report some more details on the window itself and some progress photos, too! Here's how the wall looked beforehand:

And here's how it looks now!

The thing I wish I had was the original of the first photo because just looking at it, I can tell I had to brighten it quite a bit. The new window lets in so much light, the above photo isn't brightened at all. We still need to paint and trim out the window and add window treatments (all of which we plan on doing this weekend), but we can't get over the difference it made in our whole great room.

It feels larger and makes more sense--like it should have always been there. In this progress photo below, you can see there is another large window to the right of the patio door. The large blank space to the left, puzzled us since we moved in. We knew almost immediately that we wanted to add a window. Fortunately there was room to fit one of the exact same size.

There are a few key differences though. This window opens and the other, as well as most windows in our house besides the bedrooms!, don't. While our house stays very sealed and warm all winter long--an important thing in Idaho--in the summer, we roast. The other main difference besides having our new window open is the shape of the panes. The window to the right of the door has an extra row of panes, making them more square shaped. We prefer a rectangular pane, so we did 4 rows x 6 columns for this window and will eventually switch out the other window to match (and open!).

Backing up to when our contractor first arrived, there was a lot of nerves flying around. We are generally DIYers. We like to be in control and get our hands dirty. But cutting a hole in the side of our house?! That makes us way too nervous to attempt to do it ourselves. Our contractor spent a lot of time measuring and staring and measuring and running outside and inside. And before he made his first cut we held our breaths. There's really no telling what is behind that wall. We felt like we were clear of the water pipe outside and the plug we were pretty sure stayed south, but we weren't 100% on anything. As he opened the wall up, we were faced with spray foam and no sign of anything else. It was the best feeling. Also, I was really glad it wasn't us having to remove that foam.

The above photo was taken around 2pm during a short break for lunch. He had arrived just before 9am.  So, it took about 5 hours to cut the hole, remove all the insides and frame it for support. It took another 2.5 hours to get it to this point where we're taking over:

Naturally, the exterior had quite the update too.

As for the question that we've been getting quite a lot--How much did it cost?!

The window--a good quality, 5'x6', custom Pella window we special ordered from Lowes--was $335. A steal, right?! I hate commenting prices on contractor wages, because they vary so much from place to place. But I'll say we paid him about what we paid for the window to give you an idea.

We'll have another window update next week once everything looks a little nicer. Ha! But, I am already anxious to add more windows to the great room--more specifically the kitchen. What a difference!

Ps. I got a super flattering email informing me that Chris Loves Julia was named one of Better Homes and Gardens top 10 DIY blogs. The #1 DIY blog is decided by votes--although we truly feel like we already won--if you want to vote for our blog just hit "select" under our name right here. Thanks so much for following along for so many years!