One of Three
We've been pretty busy around our household as we try and get the windows in the kitchenette of our basement done before the warm weather moves in and I find it next to impossible to do stained glass with all the bicycling I'd rather be doing. Tammy did some very nice design work to get the ball rolling on these. In case you missed a previous post of mine, here are the designs once again...
left window, middle window, right window; and here's where they're going above the cabinets in the cutouts.
Once we got the designs finished the first thing we did was work on the background glass. We're working with some beautiful Youghiogheny stipple glass we found at a shop in Minneapolis. We got the only two sheets they had and it should be enough but trying to find just the right piece for transitions between areas is still tricky at times.
We laid out the background for all three windows together by placing them in our family room windows so we could view all of the glass at the same time. The lightbox in the basement is too small for that. It's trickier than it looks. I want the background to be an assortment of color but there's also a way to do it so the changes between adjacent pieces aren't too abrupt...that's the tricky part. There's an area on the middle window which I'm still struggling with. Once you've got the pieces pasted where you want them it's time to cut them from the sheet. This is a bit nerve-wracking because if the glass breaks where you don't want it to you'll have to rethink the entire process again to work with what you have. It's always nice to have the main sheet cut up into workable pieces.
After getting the background pieces in place we started filling in the rest of the window which consists mostly of grapes and leaves. The grapes are especially tedious but Tammy has a method for doing them.
The first window came together yesterday but there was still much to do before I could get it hung. I had to run out to Keith's shop and have him cut some plexiglass to size to fit behind each window. I meant to take my camera along but forgot it. I saw my brother Tim there, too, working on staining some pieces. The plexiglass works to diffuse the lights behind the window evenly across the panel so you don't have brights spots where each of the lights are. I'm using three, 20w halogen puck lights behind each panel. Here's a photo of the first of three finished windows...and a closeup view.
We hope to have the other two windows done in the next 3 to 4 weeks.
left window, middle window, right window; and here's where they're going above the cabinets in the cutouts.
Once we got the designs finished the first thing we did was work on the background glass. We're working with some beautiful Youghiogheny stipple glass we found at a shop in Minneapolis. We got the only two sheets they had and it should be enough but trying to find just the right piece for transitions between areas is still tricky at times.
We laid out the background for all three windows together by placing them in our family room windows so we could view all of the glass at the same time. The lightbox in the basement is too small for that. It's trickier than it looks. I want the background to be an assortment of color but there's also a way to do it so the changes between adjacent pieces aren't too abrupt...that's the tricky part. There's an area on the middle window which I'm still struggling with. Once you've got the pieces pasted where you want them it's time to cut them from the sheet. This is a bit nerve-wracking because if the glass breaks where you don't want it to you'll have to rethink the entire process again to work with what you have. It's always nice to have the main sheet cut up into workable pieces.
After getting the background pieces in place we started filling in the rest of the window which consists mostly of grapes and leaves. The grapes are especially tedious but Tammy has a method for doing them.
The first window came together yesterday but there was still much to do before I could get it hung. I had to run out to Keith's shop and have him cut some plexiglass to size to fit behind each window. I meant to take my camera along but forgot it. I saw my brother Tim there, too, working on staining some pieces. The plexiglass works to diffuse the lights behind the window evenly across the panel so you don't have brights spots where each of the lights are. I'm using three, 20w halogen puck lights behind each panel. Here's a photo of the first of three finished windows...and a closeup view.
We hope to have the other two windows done in the next 3 to 4 weeks.
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