Got Lucky
Sometimes it pays to procrastinate. I needed a piece of glass for one of the doors on the Frankenstein Hutch. There are 2 doors and each have two panes of glass that are about 16X26 inches. One was missing and the three remaining ones are the old wavy glass. I would assume they are original, and the cabinet is from the 1890s, so that’s pretty cool. I wanted to get a piece of old glass for the forth pane. I first went to a few salvage places hoping I could find an old sash that was in poor shape. The idea being that I could use the glass from that, but no luck. At the last place I went to I asked the owner if they knew of a local source. They said to try Stafford Glass. That was about 2 weeks ago.
I driver by Stafford Glass every day but either would forget to stop in, or I would remember and wouldn’t have my checkbook on me. Today I stopped in and asked if they had any and wouldn’t you know that morning someone had dropped off a bunch of window sashes from an 1890s house that had just had replacement windows put in. Vinyl, Ugh! In fact, all the sashes were sitting there and the glass was neatly leaning against the wall.
Stafford Glass is a very small shop that does a lot of custom work - etched glass, stained glass repair, that sort of thing. The whole place is no bigger than a modern 2-car garage. They sold me a piece for $19.40 which seems about the same price as new glass. I asked about reproduction wavy glass and they said it is available but it is $30.00 a square foot!!! That means that the piece I bought would have been close to $90.00 for the reproduction stuff. It was really a shame to see the old sashes in the shop. The wood was hard and solid. There was nothing the matter with them. It just breaks my heart to see people take them out.
2 comments:
I wish I had the original windows for our house. The chance of finding salvage ones that would fit are pretty slim. So many houses in our neighbourhood have been stuccoed over cedar siding, and have aluminum/vinyl windows. That's a good find for you, almost the same vintage of glass.
A family bought a 1900 house in my neighborhood with a slate roof. One morning I was driving by, and half the roof was ripped off, and a crew of worker drones was ripping off the rest. Tossing it down 2-3 stories to a pile where it broke. NOT even trying to salvage.
The next day, the wood got covered in vinyl, and then the windows replaced.
Two doors down, the same story.
I am just _about_ ready to make a sales flyer. Actually, an UNsales flyer. To stick in the doors of every house that hasn't been destroyed yet. I mean, there are sales people from the roofing/siding/window companies telling these people a load of @%#. I need my own propaganda campaign.
A replacement window salesman even came to our house about a year ago. I wish I'd been here. He tried to tell my husband that our 120 year old windows were badly in need of replacement. My husband explained that they were fine, but the replacement windows that a po put in 40 years ago (in just the kitchen, thank god) were moldy and leaky, so we definitely did not want to take out any more original windows. "Ah," said the salesman, "but what kind of replacement windows are they?" thinking he could still somehow talk us into buying his product. "Andersen" dh replied. It was an Andersen salesman. He left.
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