Last Fall, we got a stretch of warm weather that allowed us to kick start our windows project. This is an ongoing project, given the house has roughly 50 windows all in some state of disrepair. The warm spell allowed me to complete the finishes on the windows in the kitchen addition. These seven windows were new construction, but were never painted or stained when the previous owner installed them. This is still our “work room,” so excuse the mess, but the trim turned out great, if I do say so myself.
We used new wood because it seemed silly to spend on historic/old growth on a room that’s new construction. Just the same, we wanted the look to flow with the rest of the house. I used a combination of General Finishes gel stain and shellac and was able to add some pretty nice depth and color to builder basic wood. These boards are 1×4 that were routered to mimic the larger trim in the rest of the house.
While I worked on these windows, my engineer husband worked out a frame that we could insert in our historic windows behind the storms so we could continue working on windows through the winter, new baby permitting. He used a mural panel from one of my previous projects, so we had a lovely cartoon view for the in-progress windows.
In addition to refinishing, our historic windows get new glazing, new glass where required, new ropes, and weatherstripping. We’re excited to watch our heating bills plummet with each redone window.
Back in 2014, I took a class at the Des Moines Art Center in stained glass, which resulted in a transom window that was almost perfect. I adapted the design of the Keith family crest to a horizontal design, and I only needed to sort out how to add the family motto “Veritas Vincit” (truth conquers). I thought about casting metal letters, buying letters that could be soldered on, or foiling letters, but before I could execute a decision, I found out I was pregnant and didn’t want to be anywhere near lead.
We bought the Hatton House specifically because it had four bedrooms, in the hopes that it would one day house a family of five. We’d just about given up hope when we found out our third kid was due in April of 2015. So sorry for the lack of recent updates, but we had a good excuse.
Hatton House Diaries 