New Windows

Our stimulus checks went to good use today, as we decided to put the money toward new windows for the house. Ours are 32 year old contractor-grade windows. Several of them don't open right, don't stay open, don't lock properly and/or have a broken pane. I would highly recommend to anyone who is purchasing a house to check out the windows very carefully and ask for new ones if you can. I sure wish we would have when we had the chance.

We wanted to make one big upgrade each year. Last year was buying the house...that was the biggest upgrade! After a great deal of research, we decided that new windows would be beneficial for several reasons: saving energy, reducing the chilly breeze in winter, and we figured no one else would be as dumb as we were and buy this house with bad windows when we decide to sell it. Much deliberation led to our decision to get Barrington Soft Lite windows. They aren't the best you can buy, but we don't plan to live here forever so we went for value and quality, plus these were the closest match to our current windows, which is a requirement of our HOA. The next step up is pretty much buying for the brand, which doesn't make much sense for our situation.

We have 10 windows in our townhouse. We had 5 of them replaced today. We chose to do the four in the front of the house and the one in the baby's room. The plan is to get the other 5 replaced before the winter weather arrives. It didn't cost any more to have just a few replaced now and a few later. This way we could make sure the house looks uniform from the front and fix the baby's window (it was one of the ones that was broken) so we could finish redecorating the room, and save some money to do the second half of the house later. I suppose they figure that no one only replaces half the windows in their house so they don't care if they have to come out twice. Any chance we'd receive two stimulus checks in one year? Fat chance I think.