New Light on an Old Subject
8 Materials
$50
2 Hours
Medium
I've owned this leaded glass window for 20+ years. I've had it hang in my sliding glass window and stand in the corner with a back light. And I've protected it from children and cats for all that time. Before that it sat in my parents garage, behind tool boxes and car parts for at least that long if not more.
Now it shines!
We recently remodeled our kitchen and needed an overhead light. We talked a lot about different pendant lights and other types of lights that would give us enough light to work by, but we really wanted to incorporate this window into the room.
This is the basic light box that was in the center of the kitchen ceiling with 2 switches to turn it on and off.
We purchased the cheapest 4 lamp florescent light we could at Menards because it would be concealed by the window. It is intended to be set above the panels in a suspended ceiling, so it is very shallow. We held the window up to the ceiling and marked the corners so we knew where to put the light.
We purchased butterfly anchors/toggle bolts big enough to hold the weight of the window but needed to replace the bolt with an eyebolt to accept the chain that would later hold up the window.
We had to drill a 1/2 inch hole into the ceiling to let the butterfly clip/toggle bolts through so we purchased fender washers to hide the large hole.
The finished product looks good!
This is a picture of the toggle bolts, as you can see they just have regular bolt heads on them...
We installed the light fixture in the center of the eyebolts and also used the butterfly clips on the toggle bolts to mount it to the ceiling.
Then we drilled 1/4 inch holes in the corners of the existing frame of the window. After all of this time the wood is still solid. We then installed more eyebolts through the frame...
and put finish washers and acorn nuts on the side that would be facing down. We left the old paint on the frame for the "finished" side. It is all cracked and chipped but I love it!
Then we hung the light with decorative lighting chain links from both eye bolts.
This window is from my grandparents home, built in the 30's in St. Paul MN. We have looked for others in shops around St. Paul. Very basic windows, about the same size, but with less color are around $100.
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4 comments
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This looks just so stunning!
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My heart sang when I saw this. Great story. This window is like the cat with 9 lives!
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Thank you!
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