Windows: Worry to Wow
"Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.". ― Edith Wharton
I have always been a fresh air freak and love open windows. Give me air, summer or winter, hot or cold.
So when it turned out that the ground-floor windows in the cottage wouldn't open because they were too heavy and their double-hung sliding mechanisms had become warped, and the second-floor windows in the cottage wouldn't stay open because they were made of rotten wood and too light and their double-hung mechanisms were non-existent, I needed to come up with solutions.
My first attempt at a solution was to ask the owner of the house if there was a way to open the ground-floor windows. He accused me of being too demanding. I told him no: it's 90 degrees and I'm hot!
The ground-floor was a sauna of suffocation -- and upstairs was 10 degrees hotter. It seemed I had escaped the intolerable noise and vibration from neighbors' ac condenser lines and more due to faulty roofing at my regular place, only to land into intolerable heat and suffocation at my rental cottage.
The windows need to be replaced in my opinion, or at least repaired. But I am renting, and just for the summer, so am not in a position to take such steps.
Still, air-flow was imperative! I knew I needed to get the windows in the living room and dining rooms open, and keep them open, and keep them from falling onto sweet Jorji the cat or my hand or anything or anyone else.
With struggle and strain, I managed to open one dining room window a little bit. I propped it open temporarily by sticking some cardboard and then a box into the window to keep it open at least for a while, as the weight of the window and the moisture from the humid air slowly crushed and crumpled the box. This did not look classy, but cardboard boxes were all I had to work with at first.
Then, some girlfriends who came by for a small housewarming party (photos soon!) managed to open the living room windows a little bit, and again I placed cardboard boxes in the windows to keep them propped open. Again, this looked tacky, and the boxes crumpled bit by bit.
I searched online but didn't see solutions.
Then, searching for buoys for my Great Lakes decor theme, I found wooden buoys from Nautical Seasons and wondered if they would prop the windows open. As a test, I ordered 3, hired my favorite TaskRabbit handyman, and: success!
Johnny was able to open the 2 living room windows and a 3rd window in the dining room today, and placed the buoys just so to hold the windows open. The wood seems strong, the windows have been up all day, Jorji the cat can prowl the window sills and view birds and bunnies without danger of falling windows, and we have fresh air!
Fresh, life-sustaining air!
Like the rest of this truly charming house, the windows needed 3 good scrubbings before they started to look clean. The newly opened windows need even more, to clean away the dirt inside the windows.
As for the blinds on the ground-floor windows: they are fithy, flimsy, and mainly broken and should be removed, in my opinion. (The blinds in the guest room fell down of their own accord; the owner put them back up; they fell down again; I put them into a back closet which is where I also put a filthy shower curtain, doormats, etc.) Since as a short-term renter I'm not in a position to take down blinds which don't fall down by themselves, I've simply rolled them all up, to let the light shine in.
And, now we have fresh air!
Ground-floor window photos:
Before
After
These upside-down buoys work, and look better than and are sturdier than cardboard boxes, and are just the fix this house needed for some air-flow. I am now purchasing additional wooden buoys for the additional heavy windows, and already breathing easier upstairs and downstairs.
Isn't it something that buoys designed for water are delivering fresh air! That's the Golden Age: elements coming together!
I've raved elsewhere in this blog about the ingenious wooden window jacks that I found at The Vermont Country Store to hold open the lightweight wooden windows on the second floor, and these continue to keep the upstairs windows from crashing down like they did before!
The slim wooden jacks seem made for light windows, not the heavy ones on the ground floor, and I recommend the jacks for light windows, and the buoys for heavy ones.
Second-floor window photos:
Before
Isn't the greenery through the windows of this simple 1906 house beautiful? The lovely large trees surrounding the house are a large reason I chose it -- trees give oxygen! -- along with the good energy inside the house.
Waking up feels like waking up in a treehouse, with fresh birdsong and fresh air from outside, and the house becomes a summer serenity cottage, which is just what I needed!
[Update:] Privacy became crucial, and I hung simple cabana-style curtains in the living and dining rooms; see my post on this for more details and additional photos!
Here's to function and style, and drinking the fresh air of each day!
Your friend in decorating,
Valerie
Feel free to say hi via email as well: valerie.beck@post.harvard.edu.
Thank you!
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