Stained Glass Windows: Recreating Your Front Door

Stained Glass Windows After

My current remodel was in desperate need of a new front door.  Our goal in this remodel was to take a very basic 1950 bungalow and give it the feel of a 1920’s Frank-Lloyd-Wright-Inspired-Craftsman (I’m pretty sure that’s not a textbook definition – I made that one up).  My first thought was to simply buy a new front door set but wanting something unique and different, I was not able to get exactly what I wanted without either shrinking the front door set or losing the great light in the entry hall.  To get just the right look, I decided to keep the door and simply replace the extraordinarily tacky windows with stained glass ones that I designed.

Before the Stained Glass Windows

Having never designed anything in stained glass, my first stop was Amazon where I checked out 390 Traditional Stained Glass Designs (Dover Pictorial Archive Series). Finding a pattern I liked, I worked with a local craftsman that I found via my neighborhood hardware store to recreate the pattern.  I wanted the design to be simple with natural light.  I used a minimal amount of colored glass and focused more on textures in the clear glass.  To get just the right tone and definition for the colored glass, I gave the craftsman a couple of the leaves from our magnolia trees in the front yard and had him match the color.

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