Silver Creek Living Room Windows

Adding a window is not replacing a window

Replacing a window means taking a unit out of an opening that already exists. Adding one means making the opening — and that is a structurally different job. The wall has to be opened up, the framing cut, a header sized and set to carry what the removed studs were carrying, and the sheathing and siding patched back so the repair does not read as a patch from the street.

Then it gets finished twice: trimmed outside so water is kept out of the new cut, and trimmed inside so it looks like it was always there.

Why this wall

The room had daylight at one end and none along its length. The television was always going to sit in the middle of that wall, so the two openings went either side of it — which keeps the screen out of direct glare while putting light on both ends of the seating.

The exterior shot is the one worth looking at. Two new openings in a finished wall, and nothing about the siding says they were cut in afterwards.