Little House in the Big Woods - Window of Opportunity

 

My window of opportunity is set into an empty socket. The house is beginning to look alive.

I suppose it is difficult in the best of times to build a home. These are not the best of times in many ways, and I am discovering it is difficult to build a home.

I lead with an example: I was at home in Texas in September, 2021 when I answered a phone call from Phil, our general contractor, who is getting ready to build our home in Washington. On the other end of the phone, Phil is with the supplier of windows and they want to go over what size, location and quality of windows I want to install on my home. We all realize that under these weird, dislocated societal pandemic patterns that these are not the best of times.

These not the best of times to discuss such matters, but discuss them we must as best we can. My long-distance window preferences are noted by contractor and supplier and another element of the home building process is checked off the schedule.

The windows are ordered in October. I am told they won't be ready until late December - after all, these are not the best of times to be building a home. I am told later that the needed window material for my home is locked up in a 'supply chain' issue. The material for the window frames and possibly the glass is stranded in a tanker floating offshore, the proverbial slow boat from China. I'm not sure if this is true, but the up-shot is that my windows are not scheduled to arrive on site until March 15. Beware the Ides if March! I think to myself, am I to be betrayed?

Window and Doors arrive for installation 4 months after ordered

 

 

Octagonal Kitchen Skylight

Having ordered the window in October, and told they will arrive five months later, I must concede that these are not the best of times. I will wait, what else can I do in these times?

I revel in a perverse joy when I am told, my windows will arrive in mid-February; only four months after the order was placed - not five. I've been down so long, down looks like up. I'll take it. A window of opportunity has opened a month ahead of schedule. Don't let that window of opportunity slam shut.

 

 

Skylight over the kitchen ceiling

Mike Mulligan's framing crew comes up my muddy driveway on February 18, methodically picking up 18 of the 19 needed windows for installation. Window 19 was not delivered, this is how things go when dealing with 'not the best of times'. Window 19 will be special ordered and will be here two weeks later.

I watched the long awaited glass windows being set in the empty sockets of a framed house, bring the look of life, transforming the house under construction closer to the look of a life-filled home. Having sat idle since December, the these  bare bones of a house are being transformed from the skeletal structure to a home before my eyes.

 

Nineteen windows are set in place in February

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Studio/Loft Sun Room gets glassed-in

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are not the best of times to be building a home. The building progress has been 'pane-fully' slow. I am looking at a window of opportunity opening and I see real progress; glass and doors cover the bare bones like flesh and blood on a living body.

Roof, Windows and Doors flesh-out the bare bones structure of my house