re: windows on Washington sounds reasonable to me. im not familiar enough with the materials used in the cranks and mechanical linkages... i assume they are powder coated or other wise painted in some manner? this is a huge long shot... but you ever hear of water resistant hardware? glass fiber reinforced plastics or SS? i cold conceivably have them powder coated, or enamel coat them myself inside my oven... too much work i know... just thinking out loud here. appreciate the feed back WoW. re todinmn: this is a Houston home. should have mentioned that earlier. i made a mistake in stating 60" its actually 47-48" from the floor. 60" was from another window measurement. there is 0 chance i could raise it up that far. i have enough brick for maby 3 courses. ive never tried to find matching bricks for sale though... nor have i researched other options. i admit to being ignorant as to the cost add on for tempered glass... what would you estimate? any ball park figure wold be appreciated here. regarding the general project: gong to start calling the window places next week. the big suppliers in my area is through ABC building supplies and the big boxes. Im assuming i should not even bother with the home depot only simonton Vantage Point windows?

Alice, thank you for all of the detailed information. I currently have a dual tank Kinetico Model 60 that is 17 years old and needs new resin but since it is a proprietary system the local dealer wants $600 to replace the resin. Would you recommend replacing the resin or purchasing a new Fleck 5600sxt which would not be much more expensive? FYI for those who made be reading this, I have come to the following conclusions based upon my research: 1. Fleck appears to be the most recommended and companies like 602ABCWater provides a 5600sxt with the 10% cross-linked resin. There are more Fleck water softener systems on the internet because the distributors/re-sellers are not limited to a territory and can sell from anywhere to anywhere in the US. 2. Clack distributors/re-sellers cannot sell outside of their territory so there are fewer internet/web offerings. Reduced competition appears to cause the Clack systems to have a higher price than the Fleck systems. 3. Hydrotech / Canature appears to be the primary provider for many of the private brand valves/controllers including the Discount Water Softeners-Genesis, the US Water Systems- Fusion NLT and the Quality Water Treatment-SoftPro. All three of these companies quote the same statistics that promote the "efficiencies" and "cost savings" of an Upflow system vs a Downflow system. These companies also offer a 10 year warranty on the controller compared to 5 years for the Fleck but reading other blogs, it would appear that a Fleck controller can last 15 or more years which would probably outlast your resin.

Good. Thanks, I can be dense. Googling it I found a lot of glass and some items with the word magic in the name... Not a good sell for me. We're redoing a tiny bathroom, 4x about 10 including the shower at one end. And it's a Jack and Jill and we actually need to keep both doors! 50's era with plenty of wear, so needs redoing. We hope to be able to grow old here, so redoing the shower w/o barrier. We'll use a shower curtain but concerned that even with the recommended 2" slope from floor to rain, water may get into the bathroom and out the door opening next to it that goes to the bedroom, where the flooring will not benefit from flooding. A family member already has been diagnosed w a progressive disease so we are very aware of the need to prepare. No way to get ADA in an old house, but basically adaptive sure.

@Jan Moyer we are hiring a professional contractor. I sent the plans to him yesterday. waiting on his estimate. i have spent a lot of time on it. during my initial consultation with him he didn’t think to turn the tub. He did however say that a 34 inch wide shower was fine since it’s 54 deep. i actually don’t want the chandelier direcyltky over the tub. I’m thinking id like it centered in the section of the “room” with the tub. my husband wants to keep the tub parallel to the window and says 34 inches will be fine in the shower. so yes i got more gray hair over this for nothing. cest la vie! we kept the wood louvered doors original to the house so thats why I’m putting the mirrors on the wall. i am toting with the idea of having them trimmed up on the walls likr this the original 70s bathroom had giant unframed mirrors surrounding the tub like walls. I still have all those mirrors. i know this type Of trim work will be expensive. I‘d like to get an estimate on it though. i just moved the closet door away from tub. That was still the original/existing location.. back to the hall. I’m not sure why my blue & yellow lines pic didn’t post. Trying again one yellow line is the wall I’m talking about. The other yellow line is the distance/walking space I’m talking about. The blue line is where the wall exists now. I know 56” is enough in the bathroom and that 40 or more is enough in the hall. I have to move the wall no matter what though so i‘m trying to figure out the best place to move it to. The hall is 20 feet long. and is currently 40 inches wide then widens to 64” wide after you pass the kids bath. as it is on the plans, the hall is 48” inches after the kids bath, and the space between the vanity counter and the wall with shower and water closet is 56”. The contractor thought i should give the other 8” inches to the bathroom and make the hall 40 inches. Then he went and looked at the hall and said well it is a long hall so i can see why you like some extra width here.