The Finished Product, originally uploaded by vanRijn. We have beautiful, wonderful double-hung vinyl windows, yay us. They’re very pretty, very functional, operate very smoothly, etc., etc. HOWEVER, they do NOT play nicely with window-unit air conditioners (you can’t screw the air conditioner into the vinyl window parts). So after getting a brilliant idea from a newsgroup post, and not willing to pay $40 for a metal air conditioner brace that I can’t really use anyway (again, vinyl window sill), I set out to make my own air conditioner brace out of a 2×4, some white paint, and a little sweat. Turned out purty nice too, I must say. I was really pleased with the final outcome of this little product. What started out as a crazy idea with me looking (to my bride, at any rate, who pointed it out several times) like I was just trying to not pay $40 for an air conditioner brace turned out to be a really nice solution. First, I didn’t have to drill any holes into the nice vinyl window frames or sill (they wouldn’t have held anyway).