Saturday, July 08, 2006

Custom Stained Glass II

Odering a window

Generally, when asked to do a custom piece, I like to visit the site where the window will be installed. In this way I can get a feel for the style of the home and see how the client's tastes run. Occasionally, I'll pick up a design idea from a piece of the architecture or some of the furnishings.

I'll also see how much light will be coming through and whether it is direct or indirect sunlight. Many people prefer cathedral glass (see the following paragraph) because it lets in more light and doesn't look as "heavy" as opalescent glass. But in direct sunlight, the color of cathedral can look washed out as if it has faded.

Opalescent or Cathedral?

The term "Stained Glass" originally referred to the silver stain fired onto the back of a piece of glass which gave it a color anywhere from deep amber to bright yellow. Now, however, it refers to any decorative colored glass assembled with lead or copper foil as well as to the sheets of colored glass themselves.

There are 2 basic kinds of colored sheet (stained) glass; Cathedral and Opalescent. Cathedral glass is glass that you can see through. The amount of the diffusion of the light can vary from completely obscure - where you can only perceive light and shadow, to glass that looks like clear glass with color. And while a lot of cathedral glass will appear to have no particular color without light coming through it, like when viewed from outside during the day, opalescent glass will show a color with or without transmitted light.

All of these factors must be taken into consideration when planning a Stained Glass window.

see also: http://www.homestudioartglass.com/your_window.htm



Saturday, July 01, 2006

Custom Stained Glass I

It would be so nice to deal with clients on a regular basis for whom money is no oblect, to have a customer who says "just build me a gorgeous window". But usually, one of the first things a customer wants to know is "how much will it cost?". Often this question is asked before the design has been chosen.

There are so many factors that affect the price that it's impossible to say exactly what a window will cost until the design has been finalized and all the materials chosen. This is because;
  • The cost of glass varies wildly. For example; the cost of a sheet of hand blown flashed glass can be 10 times that of a machine rolled sheet.
  • Doing a window in lead is more difficult than copper foil and takes longer.
  • Special order items like custom beveling, faceted jewels or special came will be an extra cost.

But the biggest single factor is the number of pieces. Obviously the more pieces the more work. Our final pricing formula combines the number of pieces plus the square footage.

Still the client needs to have an idea of the price to know if he/she can afford it. And we need to know before we spend a lot of time designing a window that the customer will be able to afford it.

So we've come up with a ballpark figure of $75/ sq. ft. Admittedly, this is on the low side and would represent a fairly simple piece. We want to do every thing we can to get a window into a clients home. We've looked around and feel this is as low a price as you're going to find in the industry.

We put a cost calculator on our website at http://www.homestudioartglass.com/your_window.htm

You just plug in your window's measurements and the java script will calculate an estimated price.

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