Window Shopping

Wow!!! Wouldn’t that be cool if our house some how ended up looking like that?  A’las, probably not.  Too much to clean anyway.

We went window shopping (as in actual windows, not just looking at things we can’t buy) last night and I fear that we are going to blow through our first budgeted item.  At first glance, it looks like our champagne taste and beer budget are going to be off by almost 50%.  Not good, but we may be able to do some creative things to cut down costs.

We really like the Kolbe & Kolbe windows.   We just feel that that look classic and seem durable.  However, they are also fairly expensive.  We ended up cutting out a lot of the window panes, which at $30 a piece, should have saved us a couple of bucks.  One interesting thing that I learned is why panes are actually in windows.  The goal of the pane should be to get the eye to stop at the wall.  So in our case for example, we have a fabulous view of our fence, we probably want to have more panes so that the eye stops at the wall.  On the other hand, if you have an amazing view of the Golden Gate Bridge, you don’t want panes impacting the view at all.  With 40 some odd windows and $30 a pane, I’ll deal with looking at the fence.  Some roses or other creeping vines and it’s all good (yes, I know that someone will point out that roses or creeping vines will destroy the fence and end up costing more than the panes).

Another creative thing that we can do to cut costs is to buy the Kolbe & Kolbe windows for the front of the house and then go with something less expensive for the sides and the back that aren’t seen as often.  I don’t know how this will affect the resale value of the house.  I suspect that it would be minimal, but I would think it strange if a house had a bunch of different window brands in it.  I probably wouldn’t notice, but I would think it unusual eventually.

We also have a few windows that are pretty small.  The bathroom and laundry room for example.  We really don’t necessarily need fancy pants windows there.  If we can save a few hundy here and there it adds up to real money eventually.