A Fresh Start For An Old Church Window

I recently bought this FABULOUS stained glass window from a “professional” hoarders estate! There were four windows in all, but I could only afford this one because it was missing the bottom two stained glass pieces! As I was driving home with my new purchase I just had to call my neighbor and tell her about it… she was repainting her foyer and was looking for a new piece… I was thought this would be perfect… Well it didn’t fit in the spot I was thinking about but it was a perfect fit for the landing in her foyer.

The window was originally rescued from a 90 year old church that was being demolished… like I said the “hoarder” got this window plus 3 others… nice! It has been sitting somewhere gross, smells bad and has bird poo all over it! I’m sure my neighbor was thrilled to have it sitting on her carpet while she considered buying it

BEFORE

The hardest decision was determining exactly what the new glass should look like… I removed all of the loose (possibly lead based) paint and loose glazing, washed off the bird poo and then lightly sanded both the front and back. I installed the new glass with clear silicone caulk and used some pots to gently weigh the glass down. The next day I installed glazing on the new windows and repaired some of the missing glazing on the old windows. After the glazing was dry I painted a VERY light coat of Old White Annie Sloan Chalk Paint over everything, not only to tie in the old with the new but to also help seal on any additional flaking paint. I followed up the paint with a coat of wax…

My handy solution to weight down the glass…

This is the interior side of the window after I cleaned all of the poo off and wiped it down with a Rejuvenating Oil. It was so pretty it was hard to decide which side to use for this project!

Here the window is newly installed on the freshly painted grey walls of their foyer! Sorry I don’t have any in process pictures of the steps we used on the glass, but see here for the same process I did on the mirrored plates… We used my Silhouette for the “K” and the “Est. 2005” (which is the year they were married) reversed the letters and applied them to the back of the glass and then painted and removed the vinyl. The aging process we used just came out fabulous! It was very hard to take pictures of the mirrored surface with all of the light and reflections but you can see it pretty well…

I just am thrilled by how well the stained glass colors coordinate with the color they chose for the walls…

You can see how reflective this mirror paint is as you can clearly see the wainscoting on the landing! Aren’t they cute with their little baby boy… the picture is installed with picture corners so they can change it out very easily when they wants to.

My neighbor and I worked on the finishing of the glass together so she could learn this process too! So much fun and really very easy to do! She loves the piece and I know they will enjoy it for many, many years! It certainly is a statement piece and it is one of the first things you see when you come in the front door… what a cute welcome!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed my little window update!

Until next time…

Linking to these parties…
Miss Mustard Seed