Shortly after we moved in, we had a contractor come out to take a look at the house – the same guy who did such an awesome job installing the porch railings and fixing the interior cracks in the wall and ceiling and redoing all the warped trim on the old house. One of the things we discussed with him was what it would take to take care of all the old single pane windows on the second floor. The downstairs windows are all new double pane windows, simply because the lower floor is newer anyway, but most of the windows on the second floor are still the original rope pulley single pane type, and we were worried about energy efficiency, especially heat loss during the winter. So he went off to calculate out some estimates for all the work we want him to do (which also includes another high priority item – repairing the rotting portion of the back deck) and to figure out what would be involved in replacing the windows with custom built retrofits, which would minimize the impact on all the gorgeous molding around all the windows.

It just hasn’t been sitting right, though, this idea that we have to get rid of all those gorgeous vintage windows for the sake of energy efficiency in the winter. So when I realized that, aside from those few days during the first week of July, when it was over 100 degrees and we were working on the floor downstairs and really needed the extra cooling, we have yet to turn on either air conditioner, I started to ponder whether we really needed to do this full window replacement, or if there was some other alternative. And then I turned to my very best internet friend – Google – and discovered that, in fact, there is most definitely another alternative: internal storm windows. Turns out they’re a fairly popular item among people like us – owners of old houses who really want to preserve the integrity of the house and avoid losing any of those classic features, but still would like to stay a bit more cozy inside when it’s cold outside.

So at this point, swapping out all the windows upstairs is no longer on the agenda. It’s possible that at some point, we may change our minds – as windows break, or worse, if one of the rope pulley systems ever fails – but Richard and I are feeling a huge sense of relief right now that there’s a way for us to hang onto at least one more part of the house’s history.