Upcycling Some Not So Typical Old Windows

They day before we moved out of our old house I noticed another house down the street was having  all of its old windows replaced. When I say old I mean OOOOLLLLDDD, total lemons!!!!!  The frames were pieces of raw wood nailed together, the glass was one solid sheet (no panes) glued to the wooden frame and completely cloudy, and the only way you could open them was to push them out by a wrought iron handle and prop them open. Now that’s OLD!  So, when I saw them sitting in a pile on the side of the road I told my husband to grab 4 of them!  I knew that our new house had much taller ceilings and a lot more wall space so I was going to need decor on a larger scale to fill them up.  First thing I wanted to do was remove the glass. My husband kindly did this for me by dropping them into an empty refrigerator box, wrapping a towel around his hand and arm, and beating the glass with a hammer until it was all gone.  The glass went all over the box instead of all over the garage!  After all the glass was gone, I really liked the original color of the wood so I decided to leave it.  I just wiped the windows down with a wet and then dry rag to remove the dust and dirt.  After they were glass-less and cleaned up, I hung 2 of them on the wall in our living room (to the left and right of our TV) and 2 on the wall next to our kitchen table (to the left and right of a mirror).  Decorating the wall on the inside of the now empty window frames was the fun part!  Here are some pictures of the two in our living room…

The ledges of these windows are not flat so finding books with the right width to fit without falling off was tricky.  I had to play with several to get it to work.

side view of getting the books to stay and detail of the original wood

Here are the two next to our kitchen table….

notice the original handle in front to open and close the window

These books are from Goodwill for $1.99 each!  I painted them with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Paris Gray and French Linen and used Liquid Leaf in Classic Gold and Silver for the spine.  (I will do a separate blog post about this later)

close up of the chalk painted books from Goodwill

• gold and black prints in gold frames-Paul Michael Co.
• books-Goodwill
• brown candle holder- Hobby Lobby (clearance)
• iron fleur dis lis- Gordon’s Mandeville, LA
• moss ball- Hobby Lobby
• wooden window frames-side of the road
• silver metal cross stand-Paul Michael Co.
• moss tree-Gordon’s Mandeville, LA