Fenêtregate

In my view one of the most important aspects of a house is it's windows, especially when the house in question is a period property.  The difficulty with new getting windows right is weighing up the ascetics against the ecological properties.

Our new house in Cognac dates from the mid to late 1800's and some of the original single glazed windows are still in place but the majority have been changed at one time or another for less sympathetic windows so the decision to replace all the windows in the house wasn't difficult.

The horrible windows we have now that will be transformed into lovely
French doors onto the balcony

The ugly window in our living room (this was taken before we moved in)

What was difficult was finding an ascetically pleasing wooden double glazed option that would be made to look as authentic as possible.  Personally I would rather freeze, run up massive heating bills and ruin the ozone layer before placing Lego plastic windows in my house but I realise that I am in the minority there so I'll do the decent thing and shut up about it.

Before we made appointments with any menuisiers (French artisans specialising in windows and doors) I made-up a file with photos of the style of windows I would like for the house.  One remaining original window in the house I particularly like is in my office so this was to be my example or template for all the others.

The window in my office that I would like recreated with double glazing

Having interviewed various people who also made the dreaded plastic versions it became clear that the wooden windows they could provide were not what I was after at all.  The glazing bars that I wanted at the top of each window (like many town houses in France) were flimsy bits of beading stuck on the glass (or even worse between the two pains of glass for ease of cleaning... yuk... sorry!) and having visited one workshop in particular I left feeling incredibly depressed at the quality of workmanship on offer.

It was after that visit that we remembered someone we had used before to make authentic windows for a large old property we owned previously in the Vienne region of France. We didn't really think he would come this far south because he seems to have lots of work but in view of the fact that we were offering such a big job he did come to do a quote.

Our old house with his authentically made wooden windows

The lovely window he made for our kitchen

After a week or so they e-mailed over the quote and as expected for 13 windows it was very expensive but surprisingly it came in considerably lower the disappointing workshop we had visited earlier.

Having visited his workshop and discussed the finer details further with him and his wife just before Christmas we came to an accord  that they would come to fit the first three windows in the New Year.  So last Friday the living room window at the front of the house and two attic bedroom windows at the back arrived.  As I peeked in the van the construction looked authentic and the colour I had chosen for the exterior side of the windows (a very dark grey - no it's not black just very very very dark grey) seemed OK so we left them to it.

After an hour or so I heard them trudge up the stairs past my office so I decided to take a look at the window they had fitted in the living room but as soon as I saw it I knew it wasn't right - the bar at the top was too low.  I quickly nipped out of the front door feeling flushed and crossed the road to look at it from the outside and there was no getting away from it... it was wrong!

I know you're possibly thinking that I'm being very fussy but if the glazing bars
were higher the window would appear to be more elongated and elegant.   

I called Spike to see what he thought and to my immense relief he agreed that the window looked a bit odd and wasn't made to the right proportion.  After this shock we then tentatively went up the two flights of stairs to see the attic window they had now begun to fit. My heart sank as it had exactly the same problem, in fact it also had the unfortunate side effect that the glazing bar was set at my eye line so that when I stood at the window to enjoy the view all I could see was wood!

My view out of the attic bedroom window

The view I was hoping to have without having to bend my knees 

We measured the window in my office and concluded that the glazing bar was set a quarter of the way down the glass but the windows he had made had the glazing bar set at a third of a way down. Of course if I had gone for the stick-on a flimsy bit of beading option this problem could have been easily remedied but with me being an extremely fussy person and insisting on having windows made by authentic construction the problem was not so easy to solve.

To make matters worse when I asked if they had made any more of the windows he said that he had made all but four (luckily they hadn't yet made the French doors to the balcony so that was a small comfort)

The top window doesn't look too terrible from the outside but the window below
 (our bedroom) made to the same proportions being larger would look worse 

I withdrew with Spike as calmly as I could from the attic room and after a hushed conversation over a soothing cup of tea we agreed that we would go to the workshop to see how bad the other windows looked. The poor guy looked a bit stressed when we suggested this as I think he was hoping that we would let it go - I noticed that his eyebrows seemed to be standing on end as if the tension had made them pointy (he must be an eyebrow twiddler when stressed).

OK I may not have live in a beautiful Parisian building but I was
at least hoping to have the same style windows 

So early Monday morning we set off to visit his wife who runs the administrative side of the business to see if we could sort the mess out.  We were very nervous because having tried to live with the windows over the weekend we knew that if we compromised we would always be disappointed with them (which is particularly bad news as I am not planning to move from here... ever... honestly!).

Thankfully faced with the irrefutable 'evidence' contained within my trusty folder (years of being a legal secretary were not a waste of time after all) she agreed to reorder the glass and have all the windows altered to our specification which will unfortunately cut into their profit but they would have lost a lot more if we had decided to take our business elsewhere. As I couldn't find an 'elsewhere' I must confess I'm very relieved she agreed to change them.

So touch wood (no pun intended) the 'Fenêtregate' crisis is over and our lovely old house is back on track to get the gorgeous elegant windows it truly deserves.