Windows...

Before we could put any windows in, however, we had to buy the windows. Almost as soon as we moved back into the house, Mum and Dad were patrolling the "Reviva Centre" (the recycling centre at the tip) and the local liquidators for timber windows and doors. Of course, mostly the cheaper the purchases came, the more work they needed - except for the big double-hung diamond pane window that we paid Way Too Much for (even after serious haggling). We paid the most for this window, and we worked the hardest on it. It was supposedly reconditioned, but we soon knew better.


A succession of people spent hours over it, beginning with a good friend of ours, Margaret. In fact, this window will probably be the most memorable for this family. Not only did we spend hours taking it apart, putting it back together, stripping and painting it -



we also installed it twice! It first went in on the front of the house, in the wall that would close in the veranda (an afternoon's work involving more friends of ours, the vanDort family):



The veranda now being walled in (with a frame and black plastic) we moved our dining table in and began to eat our meals there. But after looking through the diamond paned window every meal for a few weeks, we came to the conclusion that it didn't do justice to the view. Our outlook was hindered, not enhanced. Finally, two months later, we re-installed it exactly opposite it's first position, on the back of the house.



Though Margaret began work on this notorious window on the same day we installed the first window, May 25th, it did not find it's final position till nearly three months later, on August 9th.


Other windows were reconditioned, though most not nearly as drastically as the diamond paned.



And using a set of nine sashes that we'd stored for some years, Dad also built five windows. These added a certain regularity to the outside appearance of the house. These are two of the first, in what we were originally intending to be the kitchen:



Inevitably, it usually took us much longer to prepare the windows than to put them in. But we appreciate the time we spent now.