The Fixer Upper - Window Placement N' Stuff

Thanks for checking in on me today even though I've been AWOL for the past week or so. I've been meaning to write some good posts about some of our decision making over at The Fixer Upper but it's been way too chaotic for me to sit down and even try to write a coherent sentence.

Until today. It's so hot that the little guy and I are just vegging on the couch with all the blinds and shades drawn to keep it cooler in here. I thought I'd fill you in on a few of the big realizations we've come to since taking on this giant project a few short weeks ago.

1) We really were pretty crazy to take this on.

2) We are both WAY too perfectionistic (is that a word?) and OCD to "flip a house" in the quick and cheap kind of way.

3) We have much more work to do than we thought, as we've decided to make some major changes to some of the work that was done prior to buying the house.

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Our first example is window placement. There is a new bedroom and a new bathroom framed and drywalled in the back of the house that were part of the original laundry room / mudroom. I think that this was a great idea and a good use of space. However, the Flippers kept the original window locations that made sense for the laundry room / mudroom but not so much for the new bedroom and bathroom. See, both windows face into the side yards. There isn't a single window (or door) on the main floor that looks out or goes into the backyard. Which is weird. How are you going to yell at someone from the deck to bring out another beer orange juice? Or yell at the kids to stop play-fighting? Or check to see if the dog is trying to escape again?

This picture is of the bedroom. You can see that there is one side window: 

Main floor bedroom.

This picture is the other side of the bedroom and you can see there are no windows that look into the backyard:

Main floor bedroom.

The next problem is the window placement in the new bathroom. They used an existing cut-out so the window is kinda large and looks right into the neighbour's driveway. Um, not so good for privacy ifyaknowwhatImean. It's also completely blocked off when the door is open which would be most of the time. 

Photo of the large bathroom window being blocked by the door:

So, here's what we decided (see #2 above re: OCD).  

We are going to take the two side windows (the one from the bathroom and the one from the bedroom) and re-install them both on the back wall of the bedroom. Having two large windows at the back of the bedroom will let more light in, help with furniture placement in the room, and create a nice view to the backyard.

Since that leaves no window in the bathroom, we are going to purchase a new, smaller one and install it on the back wall also facing the backyard.

Phew. Sounds like a plan.

Here is a photo of my handyman (Alex) removing the bedroom window:

I know that we could have just lived with the windows how they were. That's what regular Flippers would do. But ultimately we want to have a house that is attractive AND functional, both for Alex's parents now and for the future owners down the road when/if we decide to sell.

What do you think? Good decision or a waste of our time and money?

In case you missed these posts:

The Story of The Fixer Upper - Part One
The Story of The Fixer Upper - Part Two