The wood is better than what replaces it
Old-growth timber has tighter rings, higher density, and far more heartwood than the fast-growth stock milled today. Removing it is a downgrade in material quality, whatever the brochure says.
Preserving craftsmanship. Restoring performance.
Premium Wood Window Restoration Specialists
For more than 20 years we've restored, repaired, and renovated premium wood windows while preserving their original craftsmanship and upgrading them to modern performance standards.
Authorized Pella Trade Partner
A licensed contractor partner of Pella Corporation — restoring, reglazing, and upgrading Pella® wood window and door assemblies to current performance standards.
20+
Years restoring premium wood windows
6
Species regularly milled in-house
10
Documented steps in every restoration
0
Trim, siding, or drywall disturbed
Why Restore
Replacement is a default, not a conclusion.
The case for restoration is not sentimental. It is material, thermal, and economic — and it holds up under scrutiny more often than the industry admits.
Only the failed components need replacing
A fogged insulated unit is a glass problem. A soft bottom rail is a rail problem. Neither requires discarding a frame, cutting trim, or disturbing siding and drywall.
Environmental arithmetic favors keeping
The embodied carbon in an existing window is already spent. Restoration adds a new glazing package; replacement adds a whole new assembly and sends the old one to landfill.
Architectural character is not reproducible
Profiles, sightlines, and proportions were drawn for the building. Stock replacement units change all three, and the change is permanent.
Performance is a glazing and seal question
Most of the efficiency gap between an old window and a new one lives in the glass cavity and the weatherstripping — both of which can be upgraded in place.
Long-term value compounds
A restored assembly re-enters a maintenance cycle you can manage. A sealed modern unit reaches end of life and starts the whole conversation again.
How Window Restoration Works
Three states of the same window.
Select a stage to see what is actually happening to the assembly — the failure modes, the shop work, and the result.
Step 01 — The Original FrameWhat twenty years of weather does to a wood window
Failure rarely starts at the glass. It starts where water sits: the bottom rail, the sill, the joint where the finish film cracked three winters ago. By the time fogging appears, the assembly has usually been telling you something for a while.
- Wood decay
- Sustained moisture in the rail and sill
- Fogged glass
- Perimeter seal fatigue in the insulated unit
- Failed glazing
- Shrunken bedding compound and split bead
- Air leaks
- Compressed weatherstrip, out-of-adjustment hardware
- Single pane
- No sealed cavity, no coating, no argon
Before & After
Drag to compare.
The same class of assembly: one at the point of failure, one after restoration. Note that the profile, the sightline, and the proportion are unchanged.
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Film
Watch the craft, not the pitch.
A short film following premium wood windows through the shop — the decay, the milling, the glazing, and the return to the opening.
Paused
Interactive Education
Understand the building science before anyone quotes you a number.
Window Types
Every configuration fails differently.
Casements wear at the hardware. Awnings rot at the bottom rail. Double hungs leak at the meeting rail. Restoration scope follows the geometry.
Gallery
Shop, bench, and site.
Our own glass fabrication floor, the failures we are called to assess, and the assemblies after they go back in. Drag or use the arrows to move through the set.
Fabrication floor
Our insulated glass shop. Lites are racked, washed, and sequenced before assembly so each restored sash receives a unit built to its own measured opening.
Insulated unit line
The sealed-unit press. Spacer, desiccant, and primary seal are set here — the components that decide whether a glazing package lasts five years or twenty-five.
Cutting and edgework
Cutting table and edge grinder. Cutting our own glass is what makes matching a legacy sightline possible instead of approximating it with a stock size.
Corner failure, as found
Water tracked behind the cladding and destroyed the pine core at the bottom corner. The glass is fine. This is a joinery repair, not a replacement case.
Rail decay
Advanced decay along a bottom rail. Sound stock is cut back to clean fiber and new milled timber is scarfed in to the original profile.
Exterior sill
The exterior sill after consolidation and refinishing — the member that takes the most standing water and fails first on nearly every elevation.
Glazing bead detail
Restored mahogany stile with a new glazing bead line. Crisp, continuous, and dimensionally identical to the bead it replaced.
Douglas fir jamb
Interior fir and painted casing left entirely undisturbed. No trim removal, no drywall patching, no repaint of the room.
Interior jamb
Finished interior jamb and sill of a completed opening. From inside the room there is no evidence that any work occurred.
Operating casement
A restored casement after hardware adjustment and weatherseal renewal — closing on its full compression seal again.
Mahogany entry door
Full finish restoration on a mahogany entry unit with new insulated glazing, photographed before rehanging.
FAQ Center
55 questions, answered plainly.
A searchable reference covering restoration methods, glass science, wood behavior, performance, and maintenance.
What exactly is window restoration?
Restoration keeps the original frame and sash, repairs what has failed, and upgrades performance components such as glass and weatherstripping. Replacement discards the entire assembly.
How is restoration different from repair?
Repair addresses one failure. Restoration returns the whole assembly — wood, glass, hardware, seals, and finish — to a documented performance standard.
Can any wood window be restored?
Most can. The deciding factor is how much sound wood remains in the frame and whether the profile can be reproduced.
How long does restoration take per window?
Shop work is typically several days per sash, with cure times for adhesives and finishes driving most of the schedule.
Do I have to leave my home during the work?
No. Openings are secured with temporary glazing whenever a sash is out.
When you're ready
Read first. Decide second. Talk to us third.
We would rather you arrive at a conversation already knowing what a warm-edge spacer does and why your bottom rail failed before the glass did. When that point comes, our specialists are here.
Speak with a restoration specialist