One of my brothers came out for Thanksgiving, and just before we left to go visit my other brother, I found the cats outside, even though the cat door was closed. I discovered that a piece of glass had broken off the bottom of one of the large view windows in the living room, and the cats were using it as a new cat-door. I could replace the glass for $700ish, or I could replace the windows. Given how poorly the house was insulated, including the cold that just poured off the aluminum-frame single-pane windows in the winter, I started searching again for window replacements.
One of the things I had learned in an earlier attempt to upgrade the windows, though, is that double pane (double glazed) windows have some maximums: height, width, and surface area all have to fit within some constraints. In particular there is about an eight foot limit on height, but the living room view windows were just over ten feet tall.
Last (definitely not least) I now have a Serious Girlfriend and wanted to clean up and expand the place -- especially the garage -- so that she could move in. The then-existing garage was too small to fit the car I was buying, too.
The front door is a custom design -- I drew something up in
Google Sketchup
(and I think they also finally saw the garage doors
we had chosen) and Pella built it from that --
which the Pella sales
guy says they have now sold a bunch more as "the Torek".
The staging furniture is much nicer than my own. :-)
(Although we're replacing the sagging couch, so now, who knows?)
You can't really tell but right outside the glass doors,
there's now a backyard shade structure that echos
the structure (also not pictured) at the front door.
I think once the weather turns warm so that we can use it,
it will be really nice.
The portrait of the lady is a litte too much for me,
but the zebra chairs are nice.
It was snowing all afternoon and evening of the open house.
The guy who put up this brass thing (and the wooden slats ceiling)
did it back in the 1970s.
He was the second owner of the house.
(We had the ceiling restored and the lights re-done.)
He came by the open house with photos of this from the 1970s.
Garage, with Karma
tub
steam shower
cabinets and drawers
The art on the wall here is actually mine,
but we've moved it to the living room.
Island sink, also for filling pots for cooktop.
The island is huge, I did not realize how huge it was going to be!
The bookshelves here are now holding cookbooks (rather than,
or maybe eventually in addition to, objets d'art).
When standing at the cooktop, you can see into the living room and
out to the mountain.
Backsplash glass-tile
Lamps in the library area.
Unfortunately there's no good shot of the bookcases.
Well, I use it as an office, but it's
also either another master suite, or a rec-room/bar, or an
art studio, or an in-law apartment.
It's a very flexible space!
The laundry room has a Secret Passage to the master bedroom walk-in closet.