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The lovely stained glass window artist McElf is quite the busy bee up in Buffalo! Lucky for us (and you) she’s taking lots of progress pictures along the way – and since we LOVE progress – here’s a sneak peek of what’s happening *right now* in her studio:
The glass arrived! Here’s the amazing crate job, not leaving anything to chance when it comes to transporting glass:
Okay, okay. That was a teaser. Here’s a sneak peak of some of the unpacked glass. Scrumptious:
McElf working in her studio on the cartoon, aka the full size pattern. What a great drafting table!
Cartoon complete, and testing out some of the glass:
The curved forms! The window will be built on top of these, and then they’ll be used to transport the completed window to Philly:
Attaching the cartoon to the forms, and laying out some pieces:
We are so excited to watch the magic unfold!
McElf has sent us over a dozen versions of our window in the last few days tweaking and perfecting each element… getting the blue ribbons just right, adjusting the size of the torch, adding more to the center supporting element, etc
So we posted them all up on our office blackboard wall and stood back to look.
We went through circled the options we liked best and of course did some sketching and tweaks of our own.
It has been a really fun and collaborative design process but of course it has to end soon…
This was version 12 from McElf which is very close. What do you think of moving the dates to side and placing Madison Square in the middle? Maybe it should read madisonsquare.wordpress.com! That is probably too long, we will just have to buy madisonsquare.com!
A little more sketching and a little more CAD and we are there…
And the big part… construction, can begin! The materials have been ordered.
Getting even closer on the stained glass window! We did another ‘net meeting tonight to review the latest updates.
Here is the latest version printed full size in place.
There has been a lot of massaging to get the relationships, proportions, and composition just right. We have a few more adjustments to go but we are really close.
And of course we also reviewed the colors and all the glass types. It’s going to be great!
This weekend we worked on getting the old openings ready for new trim…
We packed the wall out to support the drywall & trim.
Cut and replaced the gouged and uneven area of the old door frame.
And in filled with drywall. The current drywall is 1/2″ proud as it was laminated over the old plaster, partially burying the trim. Packing these areas out recreates the proper wall to trim relationship.
And of course, next comes the spackling!
Here is the window as of Sunday night.
We also denailed all the old trim so it can be salvaged, which is not a fun process but the old trim is pretty.
An interesting find, the old carpenters wrote their notes all over the backs of the old trim, very cool.
Time to finish the Half Bath window trim…
The wood we glued up earlier in the week was ready to be sanded smooth and the profile cut into the ends:
Then up it went!
Here is a detail shot. The fact that the walls are already painted makes it look so much nicer…
And all done:
Of course there is still lots more to do… the front window sill and apron both got glued up yesterday so we will get to repeat this process in a few days….
And you thought we were done with the masonry and on to finish work! (Me too)
…Yesterday, we repaired the base of the front living room window. The old rotted sill was removed and the old brick exposed.
Like we have done for all our masonry projects, we mixed our own mortar so it is appropriate for the old brick. (When buildings move you want the mortar to be the sacrifical element not the bricks. Pre mixed modern mortar is very strong like modern bricks but would crack the old softer bricks…)
We filled in a gap between the inner and outer wythes of brick, replaced some corner bricks, and made a level bed for a new sill.
And in goes a new pressure treated sill. This will be good to support the bottom of the window and our new interior trim. (And if we ever get around to replacing these windows at least this part will be set.)
While I had the mortar out & mixed I also took the opportunity to fill the holes from our old front door light since it’s now on the opposite side if the door… It was about time.
http://madisonsquare.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/testing-out-porch-light-locations/
http://madisonsquare.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/front-light-is-up/
We finally got back to half bath window trim tonight.
Last time I just finished the jamb extensions. You can still see the shims sticking out.
So here is the casing installed!
For the apron, I ripped a piece of the casing in half and glued it to a piece of flat stock to form the correct profile.
Once sanded and the ends cut it will match the original aprons and once stained the joint will be hardly visible.
Tonight we had a productive, high tech, computer screen sharing, design review video conference call with McElf! Here’s a screen view (on our conference room at work) showing the color palette, renderings and the patient McElf:
We reviewed some details, got to see Maddie the dog, and settled in on a schedule.
When we got home we had some belated bday cake, served in our fancy, new to us, cake dome with flair. It used to be my grandparents, and I officially love it.
I’d like to say I got the cake at Termini Bros or DiBruno’s or some other fancy Philly bakery, but no…. I made it myself Monday night but we’re just now digging in.
This is a nice pic of Rob enjoying his cake… But also a good view of the layered cake:
Once the sugar rush hit, we got to work sorting and selecting oak trim for the various living room locations. It makes a difference because it’s all going to be stained with clear finish so we want similar pieces together. (Also we’re selective, deliberate, and have high standards, and these things are important to us.)
We also visited our basement wood stack! My, how it’s dwindled:
So that was our Wednesday!
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