Protecting Home and Heart: Our Window Replacement Adventure
October 2023:
While this room has certainly come a long way, we weren’t anticipating needing to totally replace the windows.
Today, I’m sharing a rather unexpected and slightly unnerving story that unfolded in our lives on Valentine's Day 2021. I repeat—unnerving—this isn't your typical lovey-dovey Valentine's tale. It's more of a costly adventure involving our music room’s bay window and a couple of BB pellets.
Picture this: It was a bone-chilling, frostbite-inducing, negative-20-degrees-Fahrenheit night. Nearly one full year into the pandemic, people were still accustomed to assuming they’d be in for the night, and with the weather we had that week, I don’t know why anyone would want to leave the warm comfort of their home to brave a Valentine’s date night on the town.
Around 11 pm, after Jason and I had settled into bed and were on the cusp of dreamland, the silence was shattered by two sharp 'ping' sounds. Startled and bewildered, I sent Jason out to look for the source of the noise. The house was so dark, and I think he was also a little spooked, so without finding anything obvious, he came back to bed, reassured me that everyone was safe, nothing appeared to be broken, there wasn’t an intruder in our home, and so on. We both fell back asleep.
It wasn’t until the next morning when I was playing in what’s now our music room, but what was at that point our toddler Joe’s (then 24 months) playroom, that I discovered the source of the noise. Our beloved bay window had two circular holes about 18” apart.
Initially, Jason and I thought, It must have happened from the extreme cold… maybe the window couldn’t handle the pressure? Followed by, I can’t think of any kind of pressure that would cause the window to fail in this way. Whether or not it was subconscious, I don’t know, but neither of us could bring ourselves to imagine someone pointing a weapon of any sort at our home and pulling a trigger—twice. With a 24 month son, and being three months along with baby girl, I turned to Instagram and showed the damage to my followers via stories.
I was looking for any possibility other than an intentional, violent act. Everyone said some form of, “I hate to tell you, but those look like BB holes.” I couldn’t get the image out of my mind, and I couldn’t sleep for two weeks knowing that someone, some jerk, decided that shooting two BB pellets at our bay window was a brilliant idea. I kept picturing our son’s bedroom windows, and the angle of the road compared to his crib. I felt incredibly unsettled imagining all of the possibilities, and not knowing if or when it would happen again. Thank goodness it didn’t!!
Thankful This is Behind Us
This was a chilling reminder that sometimes, life throws curveballs when you least expect them. But it also served as a wake-up call for us to ensure our home was a safe haven for our growing family, especially with a baby girl on the way.
Fast forward two years, and we finally saved up enough to replace our beleaguered bay window. It was a long time coming, but the peace of mind that comes with it is priceless. Now, we can look back at that unusual Valentine's Day and share it as one of those "can you believe that happened?" stories with friends and family. I’m in a much better mental state today than I was then, so I wanted to share this story, answer your questions, and provide some closure on this experience for those who were following along back when this initially happened.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Did you just live with holes in your windows that whole time?
A. Yes, but with the windows being double-paned, the holes were only in the outer pane. There we're marks on the inner pane, but the BBs didn’t come all the way through. On the larger hole, we were lucky that the BB was stopped by the metal grids built-in between the panes. Talk about good fortune!!
Q. Did you call the cops?
A. We had the cops come take a look the next day, but they couldn’t find the actual BBs. They also walked up and down our street looking for neighbors with cameras positioned toward the road, but very few homes at that time had one. We gave them the names of other people in our area who reported the same thing happening to them (we learned we weren’t the only ones through NextDoor), and while they told us they’d meet with those people, we’ll never know for certain whether or not they actually did. They told us there wasn’t much they could do other than write a report for us to submit with our insurance claim.
Q. Insurance wouldn’t cover the replacement?
A. Insurance would have covered a like-for-like replacement, and our deductible for that would have been $1,500. What we learned, though, was that the original window—having been installed in 1999—no longer meets EPA standards, so a like-for-like would have not passed an inspection down the road due to Colorado laws set to take effect. Here’s the most recent article I’ve found on this topic.
Q. Did you change anything about the style or functionality of the new windows?
It never hurts to ask!
The email I sent to our window team, not knowing whether or not I could even request a custom grid design.
A. I did!! The original middle window had a transom above it, and the lower part slid open from left to right, while the skinnier side windows were inoperable. We opted to make the middle section into one large, fixed picture window, and we made the side windows operable at 1/3 the height. I also got to sketch-out and send over my ideal grid style that spanned smoothly across all three windows, and the team was super awesome and made it happen!
Q. Was any of this sponsored?
A. It was not. The team didn’t know what I did for a living, which made it fun to be like, “Look, I can design something that’s going to be ahhh-mazing” and see the impressed looks on their faces :)
Q. Which brand did you install for your new windows, and do you like it?
A. We worked with a local family-owned window installation team who did an incredible job of finding us the best bang for our buck AND installing them professionally and efficiently. They even took care of fixing all of the impacted stone work on our home’s facade! They installed Milgard Trinsic Series V300 in Black Capstock. It’s an affordable option that brings a very sleek, high-end look, but I will say there are some kinks. The up-down panels on the skinnier windows glide smoothly as long as the pressure you apply to lift/lower the window is evenly distributed. For example, if you grab underneath the right side of the window, it seems to grab inside the track on the upper-left corner. Not a deal-breaker for us because we see that as, “Well, we chose the least expensive option, sooo…”
Q. How much did they cost?
A. The total bill for labor and materials for all three windows, installed, was $4,782, which was significantly lower (at least $2,000 less) than every other bid we received. Still, we’re not the kind of people who have a casual $5K sitting around to spend on new windows, so that’s why we lived with the BB holes for more than two years.
Q. Do they regulate temperature well?
A. Yes!! Our old windows did a terrible job at regulating the temperature in this East-facing room, so on summer mornings, it would be an actual sauna in there—and that was even before the outer pane was compromised by the BB holes! Now, it can be 90-degrees outside and the sun shining directly in, but with the air conditioning on, the music room feels the same as the rest of the house! Let’s hope it stays warm this winter despite the cold and snow outside :)
If you have any other questions, I encourage you to leave them for me in the comments!
Here's to new windows, protecting the ones we love, and how far this room has come! And let's hope our future Valentine's Days are a tad less eventful in the future ;)
