Daily Home Renovation Tips

A short while ago we had the windows replaced on the main floor of our home with ENERGY STAR rated windows. You have seen them before in our series on exterior solar blinds.

Well, we did not want or need to have the two windows replaced in our garage. The garage is not heated. Why waste the money? However , take a look at this picture of the front of our house and look closely at the difference in the frames of the two windows on the garage compared to the windows at the front of the house.

Can you see the difference?  If not, what about the picture below which is of the two windows in the garage with the wooden, un-kept window frames. How do they look to you?

I’m getting sufficiently mature (in terms of age, not in actual maturity ) that I find I want less and less maintenance work around the house. Hence my desire for a low / no maintenance garden in the front of our home (as described in our garden makeover series). And, with these two garage windows in the middle of our new front garden, the last thing I want to be doing is trampling all over the front garden every other year scrapping the old paint off and applying two coast of fresh paint.

So, we decided to bring back the same firm who installed our ENERGY STAR replacement windows to come back. We asked them to use the same metal, no maintenance, window frame coverings that were used on our replacement windows on these two windows in the garage. It took Yarmer (the very nice gentleman from the window company) all of 3 hours to custom make the no maintenance frames and apply them on our two windows.

Take a look. What do you think? Can you tell the difference from the after picture below to the before picture immediately above prior to the installation of the frame capping?

While they may look the same from these pictures, notice the style of capping that is different here. And, the no maintenance feature for me. Here is picture of the full front view of the house after the garage windows were capped. Compare it to the before picture of the full front of the house above.

We think for only 1/3 the price of a full replacement it was a very good deal. Perhaps this tactic could apply to your own home?