I know it's exciting, but try not to faint.

It's Friday. I'm at work.

I worked from home yesterday because of contractors. And get this. They actually showed up. I know. Crazy. I haven't been able to get a contractor to show up when they said they would the first time since Ike. And these people called like Saturday and said they'd be here Thursday, and they totally showed up. Imagine that.

Anyway. Remember a while back when I was buying special saran wrap to put on my cheese grater style windows to try and save $0.02 on my electricity bill?

Well, we bit the bullet and bought new windows. We are replacing all of the diamond leaded glass windows on the front of the house. I cannot wait to see what this saves us on electricity - although we might not feel the bulk of the savings until next summer. The windows had so many cracks in them you could actually feel the air-conditioning coming through them on the outside, and in the dining room if the rain was ever so slightly slanted we'd get some small water puddles.

This is the kitchen window before:







And after:



I think the bright whiteness of the trim is going to take some getting used to, but it will be nice to be able to open these windows on a nice day and have a cross breeze. Or, you know, get rid of the smoke from my cooking faster.


This is the master bedroom before:





And after:


Our bedroom was a fire hazard previous to this, because we only had one means of egress. Now our windows open, so we'll be able to escape in case of a fire. And these windows are double hung, so we can open the top or the bottom and the screen slides too!


These are the upstairs windows before:




And after:


I think these are the ones that look the best. And the panels will come out completely, so if I ever decide to wash the windows (STOP LAUGHING!) I can pop them out and clean the outside too!

When I went to pick up Landon after school, I had left all the lights on upstairs and we had taken the blinds down to accomodate the installation of the winodws. He could see straight into his room and see the "NDO" of his name on the wall. I had no idea it would be so exciting. "Dat's me! Mine! Name! Mine a me! YAN NAN!"

And this is the dining room window before:

And after:

Oh, did you catch that? Yeah - so the salesman was all "I'm afraid to measure those bow windows, they're going to be pretty tight, I'm going to send an installer out to measure them."

So he sent one, but not the one that came to install them.

So these guys were all, "I don't think these are going to fit."

They had 10 panels to choose from, they chose the 5 smallest ones and completed the bedroom bow window (barely, they said it was an ultra tight fit), but that left them with the 5 biggest ones for the dining room, so they couldn't do it, they just wouldn't fit. They're going to be re-ordered and they'll be back in 3 or 4 weeks. The biggest irony? The dining room window was the one we really needed replaced most.