Glass screen

Sometimes things seem to intersect in serendipitous ways, and take you by surprise. You might have to wait a while, but if you let ideas compost, well, you might come up with something that works.

We have a large landing window facing north. It's a fantastic view, though in winter it can be a bit bleak, and even seasonal changes can lose their attraction.

We never wanted to block off this window, but I did want to screen it on occasion, so I built a bi-fold frame of mahogany which was meant to open out over the window and tuck back against the wall when not needed.

This frame hung there for years. I kept thinking of what glass to put in it, and even planned a couple of panels but nothing seemed right somehow.

And here's where the parallel story begins. Even before the screen was mooted, I did a glass panel for a front door. The couple I was working for were modernising the house, and had removed all the stained glass windows, which were stacked round the back as they could not bear to throw them away. Would I like them ?

Well, is it cold in December ?

I made a couple of trips and came back with about 20 panels that looked like this:

 


They were complete with their wooden frames, and not especially attractive. The glass was lovely, though. The lead was badly worn, and they were in five different sizes, with the basic design being common to all. Only a few pieces of glass were damaged, and even fewer were missing.

I stacked them behind the house, covered them with a tarp and forgot about them except when Sue complained that they were in the way. I was thinking about them then as a heap rather than a useful resource.

And there they stayed for years. Really.

The screen idea and the heap both orbited in my head, but never collided until I had to shift the heap to get at something that needed fixing behind it.

Doh !

I dismantled the panels, and figured out that I would need to re-cut the edges and the two pointed bottom pieces to make a regular pattern out of them.

This is the dismantled pieces cleaned and re-cut to width. They are resting on a table-tennis table - hence the white edge.

And here is the first of two panels for my screen:

I re-sized the edge pieces so that the new panel should look unified, rather than like 5 panels piled one above the other.

 
It was summer, so working outside was the ticket (above). Here an old panel is propped up to remind me of the original pattern.

And here I am in the process of leading the new panel. The coils of lead came are at the bottom right, and the process is just beginning with the edges and the bottom pieces leaded up.

And here are the two matching panels leaded and brought together for the first time.

This is the panels closed across the landing window, and folded back with late evening sun on them (below).

They needed some sort of catch to hold them back against the wall, and I came up with this:

I still have a small collection of glass waiting around, but the heap has gone. 

It was worth the wait. 

I think.