The Summerhouse

What do you do when the Curb Gods hand you four working sets of 1949 Anderson roll-out windows and a pair of matching French doors - free for the taking?  It's simple.  You build a house for them.

About ten years ago, one of our favorite old houses on a shady street in our town went up for sale.  We had always loved it because of the beautiful windows and it's front porch entry with fabulous old French doors. 

The house sold quickly, and the new owners began renovating.  To this day I don't understand why - energy efficiency is my guess - but for some reason they found it necessary to rip out all of the old windows and doors and replace them.  The result was no doubt a house that is now easier to heat and cool... but, dang, did they really need to throw the baby out with the bathwater?

Anyway - fast forward a few days.  Joe and I discovered what they were doing when we happened to ride by the house just as the last set of windows was going out to the curb.  Incredulous - we stopped and asked what they were doing.  "Throwing these old things away", they said.  "For the trash?" we asked, stupidly.  After looking like he wanted to answer, "No.  For the next marching band that comes down the road and needs old windows!", he instead said "Yep."  "Can we have them?" we asked.  "Sure.  If you can haul them off, you can have them" he said, wiping his brow.

We brought them all home - still in perfect working order - with no clue what we were going to do.  Then the idea hit us to build a summerhouse.  The set of windows that you see in the picture, above, was one of the four sets.  The resulting house used all four sets and the pair of French doors.  It almost looks like a glass house.  Joe spent the summer building the house from the design that I came up with, and we have enjoyed it ever since.  We found the vintage screen door at the local Habitat salvage store for $5 - and yes, it slams just like the one in your memory.

Late this afternoon, I noticed the sun slanting across the yard and hitting the summerhouse with a pretty light.  Couldn't resist grabbing the camera - and then I realized that I had never told you about the summerhouse or how it came to be.  Now you know.

This past Friday was Countdown Friday.

THE COUNT WAS 51

Time passes more sweetly when you observe it through beautiful old rescued windows.