Seating Plans

In the summer I showed you our seating guide inspiration.  We loved the idea of using our house's 92 year old original windows that we replaced.  This house means a lot to us, we've put a lot of our own blood, sweat and tears into it, it's the walls that house our own new family, it's the third member of our family!  So bringing a part of it into our wedding was only natural.

 

My original plan wasn't much of a plan at all, I was just going to write and erase as needed, but I can sometimes have a bit of a perfectionist streak, and having uneven, crooked writing would have driven me nuts.  So thank goodness a family friend (hi Susan!) asked if I was planning on printing a template out to trace.  Hello!  How did I not think of that!?  I blame it on the million other wedding things that were on the brain.  So after I found a font I liked, my mum printed our guest list out on overhead sheets and I taped them to the front of the windows.

 

 

The reason I wanted the printout on overheads was so that I could tape the sheets to the front of the window, flip them over and write on the back of the window (so that, once the windows were on display, the writing would not get smudged, scratched or wiped off because the writing was behind.  Make sense?)

 

 

Tracing a font made my life so much easier!

 

 

I don't have a picture of them set up at the wedding unfortunately but here they are all done and in our house!  There were two windows in the end. 

 

 

 

 

I wanted a font that wasn't too stuffy or formal because that's not really us, and wasn't the feel we were going for.  Just something nice with a little personality.  We made our table numbers, years, dates and numbers that were significant in our relationship (like our anniversary date, the year we started dating, the year we went away together, the year we spent in two different countries...)

 

 

 

Then during the wedding dinner, instead of clinking glasses to get us to kiss, guests were welcomed to guess the significance of their table's number (the DJ also said they could sing us a love song which some of them also did)

 

Right now these are sitting on the floor in our dining room, but eventually we'll get them hung up on our walls for some personalized wall art.  I just have to find the right spot, which I think I may already have, but we'll also have to make sure we don't tear any plaster down in the process - those windows are heavy, yo!

Out With the Old, In With the New

Most of our windows are original to the house, only 2 on the second floor - 1 on the main floor and the basement windows were replaced when we bought the house (out of 15 windows).  And I absolutely love the look and feel of the wooden frames and details...

haha, I promise you that I wasn't angry in this picture, just chilly!

...but our heating bills did not love the wooden windows.  The breeze that came through the windows would cause wisps of hair to move around my face as I sat on the couch.  There was major leakage happening.  There was also the safety factor to consider - the windows no longer stayed open on their own (potential for fingers, hands or head injuries should they shut on anyone) and there were no locks on them.  So, since the government was offering money back for updated windows we did what we could and replaced the 4 windows on the main floor.

It was important to me that the new windows look identical to the original ones (minus the fact that they would be made of vinyl instead of wood).  So we took the necessary dimensions, headed to Canada Windows and Doors (after months of shopping around and several out-of-this-world quotes) and Darryl scored us a pretty nice discount.  He is a great negotiator - I get too embarrassed, or afraid of insulting the seller so I'm not too assertive in that department. 

The after pictures really don't look too different from the befores, you'll just have to trust me that it was worth every penny.

Before...

After...

We still haven't taken the stickers off ... it's on the to-do list ;)  So is the caulking on the outside, we've got to get around to that soon. 

I was so so happy when we picked the windows up.  They turned out just as I had hoped - they open only one third of the way, just like the originals did, and they still have the 3 panel detail in the top part!

So hopefully this winter we'll be able the reap the benefits of a less-breezy main floor, and our heating bill should be a bit lower too.

Tomorrow I'll start to show you the flooring changes we made in the living/dining room!

Have you had to replace any windows yet?