Old Window Project

I've had two old windows from my parent's farm sitting around for over a year and a half. I was storing it in their basement, and once we moved, they brought it over. One of the windows had all of it's glass in tact, and the other one had a few smashed pieces. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to make a mirror out of the one with the smashed glass, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the other one. I thought about making it a table, but it was a bit too fragile for that.

I finally decided on making it a picture frame. I ordered my prints online, and picked them up at the grocery store near my work. I decided to fill the frame with more pictures from our time in the UK. This weekend, I started working on the window.

This was what the dusty window looked like before

The frame was loose and the glass was nearly falling out.

I had to do some Molly-style DIY with some wood glue and string to hold it while it dried.

I put painters tape around the edges of the glass and painted the frame with white enamel paint.

I found the plain white too stark, so I tried putting a wash of brown paint and water over the top and then wiping it to give it an 'antiqued' look. I then put the pictures in and backed them with deep red scrapbook paper. I STILL wasn't happy with the way it looked. Something about the white paint made it look too new. My husband suggested that I try painting it brown.

I applied 2 coats of dark brown acrylic paint. After it dried, I painted the frame with gold paint, and then rubbed it off with dry paper towel. 

I'm so much happier with the way it looks now. I still have to find a place on a wall for it, as it's quite large. I'm probably going to wait to hang it until I'm finished making the other one into a mirror, but we'll see!