Have I Mentioned That I Love Craigslist?

One of our goals in building the cabin is to use as many salvaged materials as possible. I wish I could say that it's because I want to keep perfectly usable materials from ending up in the landfill, but in reality, it's because we're cheap. We have big dreams and a tiny budget. So every 2x4 and every sheet of plywood I find in the alley is just one more I don't have to buy. We are also paying for this project in cash as we go. That may mean it takes a bit longer, but we will own it free and clear when the project is done. That said, I have been trolling the craigslist free page for months looking for windows. They are a huge expense and I was hoping to find a way to save some money there. When people are replacing the windows on their house, they will sometimes post the old ones for free on craigslist. The problem is often times the windows they are removing from their house have no business being anywhere but the landfill. In other words, they are crap. Today was a different story. A fellow d-i-y-er and self-professed craigslist junkie in South Saint Paul had a garage full of windows that she herself had scored on craigslist thinking she would use them to build some kind of sun porch. She hung on to them for a while, and eventually realized the project wasn't going to happen and she needed her garage back. She said the guy she got them from took them out of his house because they were "hail damaged." There may be a ding or two on the vinyl, but they'll work for me! The tag on one of the windows said 1996, so they're pretty new, wood on the inside, white vinyl on the outside. They have the nice dividers between the panes of glass so they're smooth to clean, but look charming. They even have full screens! The only thing is that they're huge. They are much bigger than what we would have chosen, but that's not a bad problem to have. Better too big than too small, right? Maybe my architect sister can help me tweak the plans to accommodate ginormous windows . . .