Old Dreams for New

Do you recall last Fall when Tony sold his old Mustang? He got a nice little bundle of cash for her. It was not easy to see that sweet car go, but Tony was able to use the money from his old dreams to fund another dream - that of securing our basement against intruders of all sizes and also against cold air drafts! At times you could stand in our kitchen and feel a cold wind coming through the house from the basement. You see, our little home was built many years ago and she originally had wooden-framed windows, and then these nifty jalousie windows in the basement as you see above. Over time, they broke and were less effective than they had been. One window had to be completely boarded over. It was time for Tony to secure the house.

He started to get some bids and lucked onto this guy that gave him a great deal! Tony was able to get the guy to go even a little lower by blaming me for being a skinflint. I'm okay with that. The bid included tearing out our five basement windows and frames, replacing them with glass block windows and also fixing and painting the concrete around the base of our home.
Here is a problem area on our front steps. Bees have built a hive in there, and you can imagine how welcoming that is for summertime visitors! "Welcome to our home. Watch out that you don't get stung!" I requested specifically that this be part of the deal. Let's just say I'm a little paranoid about bugs.

Here is the side of our house after they knocked off the old concrete. It was really cracking. You can see what it looked like previously at the far side of the photo.

This is the nice guy that did the work. Here he is after having knocked out the old window and now he's tearing out the old frame. You can see the new window also waiting to be installed.


Here is some of the concrete work after he finished. They were a little "exuberant" with the painting, but I think the main eyesore is finally taken care of. This is a little bench off the back of the house where we had our potted herb garden last year, and we plan to put it there again this spring.

And... *Drum roll* the final product! I love them. We noticed instantly the warmth and non-draftiness of the basement. All winter we praised our beautiful new windows. Yea!! And come summertime, I'll be glad to invite people up our front steps without fear that they will get stung and never return. Thanks for selling your old dream and fulfilling this new one, honey. It was a wonderfully smart trade.