The Kitchen Window

We discovered earlier this year that our kitchen window or "skywall" as it's evidently called, had a bad case of dry-rot along its bottom edge. After mulling over the possibilities we elected for a total replacement of the window with something a little more open, and aluminum-clad to avoid the problem in the future. When we started the project, we were hoping for completion around the end of August. It wasn't to be. The biggest time-sink was simply about getting a good color sample for a match for the aluminum.

But there have been other "issues" as well.

The majority of the work happened this week, and of course I took a few pictures.

Tearing down the old window.

The resulting hole in our house.

The new window, from the inside. There's still finish & trim work to be done.

Besides the long delay, there have been a few problems along the way. The first is simply that the pre-fab window they arrived with was 2 inches too wide - there had been some problems with the measurements, apparently. So that center pane of glass had to be re-ordered, quickly - there was a hole in our house, of course, and while the rain was holding off, you just never know in November. And the window sill, which had cutouts and holes drilled for the two supports, had be shortened. The one piece sill became a two piece, with two inches being taken out of the middle.

That's a close-up of the join in the middle. It's not finished, and we're told that it will be barely discernable once sanded, filled, stained and so on.

Another problem showed up when I went to look at the window after the exterior install was complete:

Yes, the glass has a crack in it. Probably about 12 inches worth. I'm thinking it got stressed during the last stages of the install. So the center glass that had been reordered needs to be re-re-ordered, and replaced. Probably in a week or two this time, since the need isn't as pressing.

The outside is finished, and except for the crack (you can see it here too), looks very nice.

All in all we're quite pleased with the look of the replacement, and the quality of materials. However the execution on order and install left much to be desired.