Is It For Real?

I am standing here in the kitchen waiting, looking out the window at the siding contractor sitting in his truck in our driveway.  It seems he has COMPLETED THE WINDOW (said with a spontaneously loud voice burst as Regis Philbin sometimes does, don't know what I am talking about?  Then watch the first 15 seconds of this video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcTkABktRYE
I want to go outside and check out the window to see if its complete and take a picture, but feel weird with him sitting there.

He has been sitting there for close to an hour, I assume waiting on the project manager to come and ensure the completion of his work??  Either that or he is looking in the kitchen window back at me wondering what I am starring at.  YOU BUDDY, I AM EYEING YOU.   Maybe he is asleep?

This window has weathered two snow snowstorms and rain before being fully installed.

We're hoping no damage occurred to the structural and exposed bits from the all the moisture during the storms.  Mainly concerned about the exposed wood and sub walls underneath the siding.  What do you all think, a risk?

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So they finally left and I was able to get outside with some sunlight left and get a picture.  It does look complete!!  Before and After-

Pretty, pretty-

The bottom supports are new.  If you look back at the old window it had little brackets underneath but they were not performing any structural function.  They were not even centered on studs, which explains again the sagging.  I like how it looks-

We are somewhat concerned about these little openings.  Nice little entrances for hornets to climb in and build another nest?  Should we be concerned or am I being too picky?

So now we just have to paint her and add trim-

A few quick other updates/progress.  Just before valentines day I gave the heater at our backdoor some needed TLC-

Paint and a little tightening to the wall-

And some other progress in the back entrance.... patching up and painting under the kitchen peninsula.  Still planning on doing some floating shelves here-

Though small.... all updates are big and encouraging to me!

If able I hope to post later about my dinning room curtains again.  Mom T offered me some great help and advice this past weekend, but now I am second guessing going with floor length panels again.  I will explain later.
 >:-0  (this is the best drawing I can do of a sideways frustrated person)

New Window In !!

Every time I walk in my living room I sing about the window, Isn't She Lovely.  (Side note: I did not know Stevie Wonder wrote this song to celebrate the birth of his daughter.  How sweet!)
So lets quickly recap the long journey (seemed long to me anyway) of this installation-
Old window, drafty and sagging-

New window arrived Jan, 11th and hung out with us in the dining room for close to a month-

Thankfully the windows are only the 'eyes of the house' (so they say) and not the ears because we talked mean about both windows most of the time.

New window installation began Monday.  Thankfully we were able to get out of the house during the morning.  Not kid friendly or winter cold/house warm friendly work (it was snowy).  I snapped some pictures before we left-

They noted that quite a few animals had lived in the window.  I had seen remnants of a hornets nest when we removed the trim.  I didn't get a picture of the full nest before they trashed it.  It covered half the area sandwiched inside the windows base.

We were not surprised to hear the OLD window was NOT installed properly (same old news with each repair we get into).  The carpenter seemed to be slightly annoyed at all the small construction details he had to make up for, trying to get everything square.  He was nice though and from what we can tell has done a nice job.

New window installation mostly complete as of today!  They are supposed to come back and tighten the cables a bit and insulate a little more.  We are going to paint it ourselves-

You see that big roll of pink fiber glass insulation.  Little man used it as a drum, did I mention FIBER GLASS.  Fun times as always.

Before from the outside-

And after (still needs some trim work around the siding, they are going to do this)-

Sing with me, Isn't She Lovely.... :)

Jonathan will have to add some drywall to the sides before he frames the window.  The gaps are wider than our trim.  The top and bottom gaps are small enough to hide under the trim thankfully.

Window already being put to use as a race track-

Hopefully I will have my living room back in order soon, they don't seem to mind.... and I don't mind since this room will stay much warmer now... and look nicer. :)

Oh The Timing...

Get your violin out because I am going to get a little whiny.
Last Friday we had a 'dinner guest' dropped off-

Not that I minded the window finally arriving, I was actually glad the window was here and we were seeing progress.  Well that was Friday, this is Wednesday and he is still there.... and large, free standing glass objects and small children are USUALLY not a great mix.
In the engineering world we call this Life Testing, put both kids to attacking the window at the same time would be HALT, Highly Accelerated Life Testing-

Let's go back to Friday night.  Baby girl comes down with the flu.  This does slow her down immensely.  Decreasing the odds of the window getting whacked or the collection of boxes with parts scattered close by from getting ripped open.  I would rather be on defense though, protecting the window, than attacking the flu trying to protect baby girl from pneumonia.

Tuesday morning rolls around, window still intact, along with baby girl feeling some what better.  Kids are sleeping in from some long uncomfortable nights and I am resting a little extra as well.... until... KNOCK, KNOCK.... they're finally here to work on the window.  Whole house immediately wakes up... YAY!  I tell myself it's worth it to get the window done (I am usually an optimistic thinker), but I have to admit, I was not that morning.  I was crabby.... though the workers were very nice.  I watched them and noted in my head everything I didn't approve of (20 minutes chatting in the driveway while they waited for their battery packs to charge on the back deck).  I had little man keep an eye on them too, hammer in hand-

They left before noon time.  The days work was just prep work, removing everything needed to pull out the window-

You can't see it in this picture but under the red siding is the original brown wood siding, about the color of the window frames-

Even Teensy was protesting their timing, turning over their trash bin.  I don't know how she did it but she did.

So they are scheduled to return Monday since today was forecasted, and is, wet and snowy.  I guess all things considered I am ok with this.  Gives us time to recover before they put a huge hole in the side of our house.  Maybe we will all be well enough to go somewhere by then and not have to be in the house.
As far as our health, little man and I now have colds.  Daddy is still going strong (for the record, neither Jonathan nor I had the flu shot.. both kiddos did).  I am lacing our food with as much fresh ginger and garlic as possible.  Actually warm milk, with steeped ginger and sweetened with honey is pretty good and seems to help a sore throat.  Thankfully I have some farm raised hens (from our pig farmer Rick) on hand too and man oh man do they make some yummy broth.  Most flavorful broth I have ever made no doubt, which has made some great soups.
Anyone have any home cold/flu remedies.  Baby girl is too young for most medicines (except pain and fever reducers).  I feel bad that she has to suffer through the symptoms with no help.  I got the humidifier going and mattress inclined to help with chest congestion.  Any others suggestions please share!

Window Again Delayed, Two Small Updates

Its still there, hanging out on the side of our house.... the old sagging window, along with his vinyl-ey curtain friends-

Our contractor said it was not assembled when he went to pick it up (it unexpectedly ended up being a custom built job by Andersen Windows, and they did raise the price on us some but not too much since we had already agreed on the quote).  He said the plan is now Friday but rain is in the forecast so we will see.  The kids have been upset about the matter-

Or its possible it was about another matter.... its hard to tell.

In the meantime, Jonathan recently made progress on some 'small' jobs.  The first is not small to me, since I now have a rod and shelf in a closet of my own.  For awhile we were sharing one closet-

Now there are two!

He also insulated under the kitchen floor, keeping the floor a bit warmer... so I can cook barefoot all year round (isn't that why Barefoot Contessa's cooking is so good?)-

He choose to put the paper side up because we have a moisture problem in our basement.  If the fiber glass fill was instead against the wood and the paper was on the bottom moisture could get trapped between the fiber glass and the paper.  Which would be trapping moisture up against the base floor/hardwoods just above, and could result in mold also.  The paper being against the wood should 'help' in keeping the direct moisture away.  It has made a difference in warming up the floor... along with him filling all the little holes and openings around where the pipes and such exit the basement wall into the cold outside.  Knocking another item off the list suggested to us by a home efficiency specialist.

Maybe the cold floor is why the kids were upset?  I wish it were that easy....

New Year, Old Bay Window and Frosty Chicken Combs

I was hoping to begin this new year with a fresh, new, non drafty bay window.... 

but our contractor was not able to make that happen.... continuing to push back the work date.  It was initially scheduled for before Christmas then rescheduled before the year's end, as of Wednesday he was going to try and start by this week's end.  I guess there was some progress Wednesday.... they shoveled snow away from the work area.

With positive thinking we went ahead and removed our Christmas tree, I guess for this reason it was good they delayed the work (since we would have had to move it fully decorated during the holidays).  What a mess trees make, I completely understand why people get fake trees (more reasons than this).

A warm up in weather is forecasted for next week so thats also another positive for it getting postponed since there will be a hole in the side of our house during the process.

Speaking of the cold weather, chickens and snow don't mix-

Some breeds do better than others, our RI Red mix (Penny, who recently survived a hawk attack), seems to not mind cold too much.  You have to watch their combs and wattles though as they can get frost bit.  The comb is the red thingy on their head and the wattles are the danglies below their beaks (formal chicken talk yall).

To prevent frost bite we slavered their combs and wattles with vaseline, oh the uses of vaseline.  The hens were not too fond of the treatment, doesn't Rooster look happy.  She has a much smaller comb than Penny as you can see.

Not sure if that was post worthy, but I just like taking pictures of the chickens.

I apologize for another non exciting post (no house updates)... we are slowly getting back in gear to work on stuff.  Someone did add a lawn ornament this week, does that count as an update?