Sometimes events transpire that push either me or my husband into doing tasks that we have been putting off or don't want to do. Case in point started when I purchased some framed antique English prints at an estate sale. While the frames were nice curly maple, they weren't holding together that well. To add to that issue, these had been framed a while ago, at that point date unknown, and had both cardboard and brown wrapping paper on the backs, both of which have acid in them that will eventually cause foxing and problems on the prints. So I took all five to the framer and picked out new matting and new framing material. The framer told me that I should take all the "leftovers" with me, including the cardboard that had been signed by the previous framer with a date of 1938. He said the frames could be re-glued and the glass was old float glass. Well lights went off in my head at that.
Like many people around here who live in old houses, we are reluctant to fix small windows that get broken because the old glass just looks so much better than the new glass even if it does have a tiny crack. My living room has windows with muntins that divide the glass into small squares on top of larger windows on the bottom and a couple of these had small cracks in the corners. Now I had five pieces of old float glass, wavy and wonderful, that could replace those small panes at no further cost to me. Well almost no further cost to me since I did need to get glaziers' points and glaziers' putty. My very nice and talented husband changed one of the small panes out today. It isn't a difficult job but the putty was very old and had been painted over so it took longer than the task itself warranted.
Next week I will pick up my Cruikshank prints, newly matted and framed, and now they may last another two hundred years.
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