Number and mark your wood windows, storms and screens for easy rotation each season

This is just a suggestion, but if you're either making wood storms and/or wood screens for your windows in your old house, I would suggest you think about how you're marking which storms and screens go to which window, so that your seasonal work to rotate the storms and screens is simpler.

You could just mark them on the side with pencil or marker, though in my experience those marks fade and get to be hard to find over time. Or you could find some other way of marking them. I was very happy to find that the House of Antique Hardware and SmithRestorationSash.com have teamed up here to sell numbered tacks that can be tacked onto each sill, storm and screen, making the seasonal rotation of storms and screens easier. The other nice thing about these is that they can be painted over and the number will still be visible--at least for a few coats anyway.

(One minor word of warning, these are made with barbs to keep the tack in. Once in place, they can't be removed without the head detaching from the tack, so double-check you've got the right numbered tack before you hammer in each one. I've made a few mistakes and then had to glue the head onto the window, which is not totally ideal.)

In any case, the basic idea is pretty obvious, but I'll show it to you in action:

Here are the numbered tacks in their box. You can see that the #6 here has not been used, because the #6 screen has not been made yet:

Here is the 6th window on the downstairs front of the house, both sill and storm have been marked (because I am writing this in March, the storm is still in the window).

As I mentioned, screen #6 for that window has not been marked, because it is in the process of being built. As we make it, each component is numbered #6, which allows us to keep track of the various pieces when we're making more than one screen at once:

I'm running concurrent series on making wood window screens, and repairing and restoring storms and windows, so see those series, on screens beginning here and on storms here for more details.