From Wine Bottles to Bathroom Windows

My father put tiny windows at the top of all north-facing walls in the cabin (the bathroom is shown here).  I won't go into the explanation of why he did this (theoretically it makes sense), but these little openings have been a hassle for years.  Because the walls are adobe, the sill is about 1 foot deep.  Not only does a window have to be placed on the inside, but also the outside of the wall.  

For years, I've put off the dealing with the windows because 1) I didn't know what to do with them, 2) tiny custom windows are expensive and, 3) I was hoping I could figure out a way to open the widows.  After years of stuffing the openings with insulation and layers of hardware cloth, I've had it. Rodents love these windows and use them as doorways, but the main problem is spiders and insects.  I love the little guys, but I don't like the resulting cobwebs/beetle leg/dust bomb combos that result  

So, what to do when you're cheap and in a pinch? Use what you have and be creative.

I love the look of tudor style windows with rondels of glass.  Along those lines,  I've seen some amazing stained glass done with bottle bottoms and glass plates and I thought I could do something similar.  Rondels are expensive, but bottles are free and readily available.  Shown at left are some wine bottles that Paul ad I cut (see previous post) for this project. I was concerned about the thickness of the glass, but what the heck, give it a try and see what happens. 

By the way, I am not an expert at stained glass.  I've dabbled in it, but I am very much an amateur.  If you want to try something like this, start simple, have all the appropriate safety equipment and don't expect perfection in the beginning.

In this window, I wanted to combine glass nuggets (from any craft store) with the green glass.  The first step was covering all the glass edges with copper foil tape, then arranging the glass pieces on a board, pinning them in place, and last, soldering. Shown at left is the arrangement of glass pieces on the board.  

As usual with my projects, I deviated from normal procedures: here, I was not creating a perfectly flat window to be inserted into a frame.  I won't describe the installation process in detail, but my main concern throughout was maintaining the correct dimensions of the window opening.

At left, I'm holding the window after all the pieces have been tacked together with solder (the silver bead-looking things) on the wrong (outdoor) side. Shown here is the front side which has not yet been soldered.  There is still a lot of copper visible and all of that is covered with solder in the next steps.  At this point, the window (about 12" square) is quite heavy just from glass alone.

Shown here is the front (indoor) of the window after soldering is complete.  Okay, it looks pretty sloppy, but this doesn't concern me because the window is 8' up and no-one is going to be looking at it up close.  Because I didn't cut glass to fit between the bottle bottoms, a lot of solder had to be used to fill the spaces. This is a heavy window!  At this point in the process, many stained glass artists would treat the solder to darken it.  The process uses some nasty chemicals, takes more some more time, and didn't think it would add much to the final appearance of the window. 

The installation required two frames attached to the window opening itself.  One about 3" inside the sill and another flush to the edge.  The stained glass panel fit between the two with some rubber weatherstripping along the edges for an airtight seal.  The window itself is set back 3/4" from the face of the wall.

The view shown here is with the bathroom light off and the sun shining in.  The little yellow light at the bottom is a set of beer bottles stuck into the adobe wall when it was built (another artistic addition from my father) in the 70's.  I like the way the glass from the two types of windows complement one another.


The next windows (two in the kitchen) will be made out of clear glass bottles.

Stay tuned!

Grout.... the horror!

What a handsome fellow - a roadrunner pebble mosaic - done!

This post is dedicated to my friend Melody Ellis, a truly fine ceramic artist.

The first trip of the season out to NM and one of the goals was to grout the blue glass wall in the bathroom.  A previous post described the installation of the pebble mosaics, and all that was left to complete the project was the grout.  I admit I had a lot of aprehension; mainly due to the pebbles.  True, I had sealed them thoroughly, but I just couldn't get away from the idea that grout would stick into those tiny pits and crevices and ruin the lovely birds.

Melody suggested grouting to match the tile color which would emphasize the mosaics and diminish the tile.  Since I wanted to visually expand the space (tiny bathroom!) having the effect of a large blue sky would be beneficial.  Surprisingly, I had a difficult time finding grout colorants (either you pay a lot for tiny amounts of pigment, or you pay less for enough pigment to color a warehouse floor).  In the end, I had to special order pale blue grout from Home Despot, but no complaints.

So, here's the process:

Tape off the area around the mosaic.  I did this because I chose to grout the birds with a grey/beige grout.  Although in hindsight, I should have used a darker grey.

Grout each bird.  Recalling Melody's advice, I just pressed the grout between the rocks with my hands.

Clean off the excess grout.  Not as difficult as I thought it would be!  Yes, there was a bit left behind, but I can live with it.

Remove the tape, and let the grout set overnight.  I retaped over the birds, then grouted the tiles (not worthy of a photo).  Even though the background grout is a clear, light blue, it looks grey in the pictures.  The overall look is just like a blue sky. 






So, I have to apologize Melody.  Cleaning the mosaics was NOT horrific (I was sure it would be), no grout left in the crevises (I was sure there would be), and my birds are lovely (I was scared).  I had doubts.  You did not.  You told me all would be well and it is!  Thank you Melody, your advise was spot on.

cranes flying toward the window

A Handful of Stones....

A flock of mosaic cranes flying toward the window.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am really good at coming up with ideas.  As I mentioned in a previous post, if it's complicated, involves lots of little pieces and takes a lot of time, that's the idea that will pop into my head first AND the one I will be dedicated to trying. I guess that's why I like mosaics so much.

So, the bathroom.  It is quite small (about 4'x6') and I wanted to open it up visually.  As with so many other things in the cabin, I had to make the best of the layout.  I decided to make the bathroom a wet room; tile all walls except one and have everything waterproof. 

On the wall with no plumbing fixtures, I thought a mosaic would visually expand the space, and I settled on the simple design of birds flying through a blue "sky" made of 1" tiles.  I wanted the birds to be realistic, but simple and decided to try pebble mosaics.  Native species were the obvious choice, so the final mosaics are a Gila Woodpecker on the door jam (see below), a roadrunner on the floor (also below), and s flock of Sandhill and Whooping cranes flying towards the window (see photo above).

The New Mexico state bird - the stately roadrunner.

 I figured that in this day and age, if you want something (like1" sky blue tiles), you should be able to find it pretty easily.  Not so.  I had a heck of a time finding simple, pale blue, small tiles.  Sure, there is a diversity pool tiles, but the current trend in tile is glass, which is pricey (starting around $20 a square foot).  I didn't want iridescent, glitter, foil, swirls of color, or textures, just plain-ole, pale blue, small tiles. In the end, luckily, I stumbled upon Vidrepur recycled glass tiles.The color is perfect (close to a real sky blue), the tiles are inexpensive (yay!), and mostly recycled materials (great!).

The mosaics themselves were pretty easy to make.  I used a a technique similar to my previously described mosaic, but with pebbles instead of tile.  The mosaic sheets were painted with tile sealer to prevent grout from sticking to the cracks and pits of the stone.  

A woodpecker will be pecking at the door jam.

 Installing the tiles and mosaics was pretty straightforward.  The main difficulty was keeping the non-square sheets of tiles aligned (which I didn't do well in a few areas).  The pebble mosaics were mounted on mesh and were treated like smaller sheets of tile.  The mosaics were taped onto the wall to decide their placement and orientation, then glued on with thinset.  Sheets of glass tiles were placed around them, with the final bits cut with nippers and placed next to the mosaic individually.  The two photos below show the work in process and completed.

The next step for this wall will be grouting.  On the advice of a tiling friend, I will use pale blue grout for the main wall and a medium grey for the mosaics.  I admit I'm scared of grouting those mosaics; all those tiny crevices in each stone. Yikes, I'll be using toothbrushes and tiny picks!  Oh well, I have to finish what I started.