We've finally decided to do it. Sick of having neighbors and gangbangers looking in the windows at our shit, we're getting deep, dark window tinting. You know, the illegally dark kind.
Okay, not strictly true, but a better story nonetheless. Kind of like saying you got a favorite scar after doing battle with a lion on the Serengeti plains. But different.
In this case, the real story is that we bought an oversized stuffed chair (like a very short couch) in December 2002. Then we bought the matching couch in September 2003 after a bout of drinking and shopping online.
We were shocked to find that they'd changed the color or something... Then we looked under the cushion of the older chair. The sun, through our 20 south-facing windows, had blasted the color off the chair.
Oops. So, combined with how hot the house gets because of the sun coming in (and we like to keep the blinds open to look upon the views) we decided it was time for window tinting to get rid of the blasting, searing heat and sun rays killing our furniture and A/C bills.
Of course, we were desperate NOT to have that dark-tinted look our cars have...
The tinting is going on this morning, so I'll update this post later in the day!
8:00am Good sign, Heath, like the candy bar, just showed up on time from Window Genie to do the job. Should take 4 hours, maybe 5. See you in a bit!
We got 2 quotes. The first was with Hüber Optik ceramic film, very expensive, something like $2500. The Window Genie quote was more like $1100 (about $4.75/sqft I think).
...time passes...
09:58am
Okay, we've got 5 window down, 20 to go...
So far so good! It already looks warmer in here (we're using a warmer color tone to the tinting, sort of caramel-colored, vs the normal blue tint). At the same time, my concerns about the low-rider are already fading. In fact, I think it's likely nobody will notice we even had the work done.
1.57pm...
17 panes down, 8 to go.
The entire living room and kitchen are complete. Looking great! Much better now that all the windows are done, my eyes don't cross trying to compare one window being finished and the other incomplete.
It'll take about 30 days to completely dry the film, but it's already looking good. There was one bubble streak so far, but he took care of it no problems.
It's taking a lot longer than expected, and now Kent, the owner of this franchise, is here to help knock the upstairs bedroom out. I guess the wood window frames are causing some slowdown.
3.47pm Owner Kent came by to help finish up, and Heath told me that our wood-frame windows were the most challenging he's ever done, and he says he's done about 10,000 window panes...
BUT, we're done! Yahoo!
Posted by BilFish at April 14, 2004 03:58 PMI guess I should have told you what happened to my couch when I heard you talking about the difference in color between yours and the new chair.. but it didn't dawn on me at the time. It should have with all of those huge sun-glaring windows that I was always closing the blinds on at your house.
My green couch is now 9 years old, but about 1 year ago I took the slip cover to the dry cleaner because the couch is much a much lighter yellow-green at this time. I thought it might just be dirt and oils but... Nooooo. It was the damage of the heat, light and sun coming through my sliding glass window for years. I keep my blinds closed almost all of the time and the sun doesn't hit it much, but it doesn't take much especially in the heat.
Needless to say, it came back from the dry cleaners an even lighter shade of yellow green, but it is obvious that the sun caused the damage when you look at the protected areas on the back of the couch and the underneath that are still green.
Posted by: Susie at April 25, 2004 07:56 AM