You wouldn’t think a person would forget they’d ordered—and paid the deposit for—very expensive oak windows, would you?

Well, we did.

Back at the end of June, I got a text message to say:

“I’ll be delivering your windows tomorrow afternoon—will you be in?”

“Um—what windows?” said we.

A little searching of memories and emails revealed the bathroom window order. And lo! the bathroom was on track again.

Side note: our deadline for having the new bathroom done is Christmas 2021. At which point I shall climb into a hot bath and stay there until spring.

So… yeah.

The Stone Room—soon to be the Grand Bathroom—now has beautiful new windows that actually close. And open.

It doesn’t have a ceiling, floor, or respectable walls, but who needs those things anyway?

Here’s what the windows looked like before. They were cheap, ugly, and single-glazed. The little one on the side of the house was so rotted it wouldn’t even close anymore, so this winter should be considerably less draughty…

View of old single-glazed window with platform on roof below

This is the old window facing the back garden

The side window in the stone wall

Side window was so rotted it wouldn’t close

3/4 view of exterior walls showing old windows

The old windows looking shabby

And from the inside, they didn’t let in much light, making a large room rather dingy and misery-bear:

View of the original window from inside the Stone Room

This tiny window didn’t let in much light

As you can see, we decided to enlarge the window opening as much as we could, bearing in mind the roofline below this window. It’s made a big difference.

Enlarged window opening complete with rubble on roof

A great big ‘ole

Here’s the rather alarming state of affairs we found when we pulled the old windows out and revealed the frameworks:

Blank window opening with wall held up by wood brace

Exciting times!

We discovered, on removing the old window, that the rotten old frame was structural. Standard! So Ken and Phil sourced a new lintel for us and fitted it, thus removing the risk of the entire wall collapsing on us in the bath. Hurrah!

And here are the new windows, looking rather gorgeous… and letting in much more light!

View of the new windows from the inside, letting in much more light

More light!

And the little side window is much more sturdy now:

Small window with new lintel above

Looking much sturdier

We still can’t do much in the bathroom because of the bats, but in August we are going to crack on with removing the floor and putting new extra-strength joists in, so it’ll support a bathtub.

Then in September, we can put in a new ceiling, make sure the bats are happy, and crack on with a proper bathroom.

EXCITING EXCITING EXCITING!