Curbing My Enthusiasm

Keith came by last Monday morning to have a look at our window dilemma. Without hesitating he suggested moving the center window up as high as we could and moving the trapezoid windows on either side of the fireplace down and toward the outside of the wall centered between the fireplace and the wall. He then suggested positioning the transom windows just beneath the trapezoids. It would take a little bit of visualizing but I knew it had to be better than what we had. Joe smiled while taking it all in stride then proceeded to get busy. He and Keith assured us that this sort of thing happens all the time.

Our original window configuration along that wall had 3 transom windows in the design but after placing our window order we decided we could only use 2 of the 3 transoms. We'd have to scrap one of them. While Joe was repositioning the center window he had an idea. He suggested that maybe we could use the soon to be scrapped transom after all by placing it beneath the center window. Why didn't I think of that? It was a great idea! We'd have to lop off about 6 inches from the top of the fireplace so the bottom of the window would be visible to anyone standing in the room but that wouldn't be a problem. We had plenty of fireplace to work with.

Before and after photos.

I felt so relieved that we had a solution that we could not only live with but one that we were also happy about. I'm glad we didn't settle for how they were.

Our plan is to eventually (when we're retired) do stained-glass in the transom windows. What sort of design has been the question and one that I didn't expect to have an answer to for quite a while but I may have just stumbled onto an idea for a design. I came across the photo to the right online the other day. It's of an original design by Louis Comfort Tiffany and one that I've always liked. The idea I had was to do a replica of Tiffany's window in the center window along the south wall (above the fireplace) and have the feathers of the peacock trailing down through the trapezoid and transom windows and working their way into the transoms above the bank of windows on the east and west side of the porch. I think it could be so cool if done right. It was one of those things where I just knew it's what I wanted to do. I started getting excited just thinking about it.

But then I had the wind taken out of my sails!

I found Tammy and told her of my idea, expecting her to share in my excitement but that wasn't happening. Okay. She just wasn't sure. We already have a peacock window above our entryway, a simple-something I did when I was first learning the art. I assured her that I can do another design above our entryway.

I then went next-door to Karen's (we've hired her to help with design elements and more) and pitched the idea to her and once again was met with a very lukewarm response. Hmmm. She's concerned that the colors won't work with the rest of the room and that there will be competing focal points between the fireplace and the windows. Valid points but I assured her that I could make this work. And I'm determined to. But maybe having my enthusiasm curbed just a little isn't such a bad idea. I'll give this step a lot of thought.

Here's a video from week 6...