Let Me Put It This Way...

I completed the new panel using plastic spacers only to decide that the square toothpicks I found would be fabulous as filler in the spaces instead of glue. Off came the panes again, on went the panes again with snipped toothpicks. Each pane was hot glued in place (I could always use alcohol to remove it, right? yeah.) I painted cardboard strips, instead of the squeeze paint mixture as Hila had suggested, as I couldn't see how to get flawless straight lines directly on the panes. I chose a brown/stainless steel mix that ended up slightly looking like rusted wood when done. (See problems and lessons below, as Hila had foreseen.)

And then I'll put it that way...

I thought I was being clever by hot gluing (instead of rubber cement as Hila had suggested) to secure the panes down which worked well and I was happy working away filling in the whole panel. I was even happy still as I painted and glued the cardboard strips over of the panes/toothpicks gaps on the first side with white tacky glue. I pressed it under weights to dry. Happy happy. When it was dry it came time to undo the hotglue with rubbing alcohol. But because I had glued the panes onto a work surface of a rigid metal rectangle (unlike the wax paper Hila had suggested) it wasn't possible to peel it back. I dove in and slipped alcohol down the back of the panel like ball bearings falling down a pachinko machine, which of course nearly undid the whiteglue on the panes as well. On with the test, Forward Ho. I flipped over what I could, pieced it back together and outfitted the reverse side with the brown cardboard strips to be able to test the sparkle effect.

And then maybe back like this...

Holding up this newest, all-day-taking, window panel sample I was sure this was a loooong way to go not to get what I wanted. Because now, my spiffy new techniques made it look so straight the window looked perfectly flat. However, light sources do in fact refract in it just right. I'll know more tomorrow.

If I go this technique/materials route, it'll look more like wooden lattice than rod iron, but that's not bad in Halfland's case, in fact it could be better, rustic, natural. And I was pleased to realize that I should use brown as the base rather than black as it dawned on me that Rana's cottage palette is all warm reds and rich browns. There shouldn't be any black in Halfland except for the Crow Character, Tarn.

This new window look is one of those things that I would never have come up with from my mind. I had to have my hands and the doing figure this one out.