Get rid of this glass?

[JoceAndChris]

I hate this glass in the bathroom fanlight, it catches the dirt and looks somehow inexplicably tacky. Is it old? Anyone recognise it? 30s? 70s? 80s? The panelling containing it is 30s.

Please tell me I can knock it out, I have to decide about this now as I'm painting there. If I knock it out, what should go in its place? Did the Georgians have lovely etched panes or are they Victorian?

 

[Moo]

Who cares if etched glass post-dates the building? So do internal plumbing and central heating and electric lights and so on.
Houses change with the times, sometimes for the worse (like that bobbly glass). If a Victorian owner had put in lovely etched glass, would you rip it out on anachronistic grounds? I bet you wouldn't!
Well-informed members of the forum may well come up with some achingly beautiful examples of Georgian glass, which would solve your problem. But if they don't, just shove in something that you like. You have exquisite taste, so you're not going to do any aesthetic damage, are you?

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Joce, how amazing, I was just about to post on exactly the same subject!!!!! That is really awful stuff isn't it!

I have already got rid of the same glass as yours in our back door, kitchen to dining room and replaced with clear. Our bathroom will be replaced with an etched glass that is just a light pattern, and the downstair loo likewise. ( if we stay that is)!!

In the past I have been successful with etch spray paint and a stencil, but that needs careful cleaning or else it comes off and was more a decorative feature than functional. The self adhesive film is quite good, but you might as well go for glass.There is also a glass which is cloudy , lets light in but you cannot really see through it unless there is a light behind. Some glaziers have samples available for you look at.

 

[essexbearhunter]

The pattern of the "bobbly glass" looks identical to that used in my parent's house which was new in the early 1960's. I have one of the windows from it in my current bathroom (where it replaced a far worse louvre window) and, yes, it does rather trap the dirt!

 

[JoceAndChris]

Thanks for those kind comments Moo and Joss.

It's a tricky decision, as I could just move the door forwards and then the offensive glass won't need to be a blot (anachronistic or bobbled) in my Print Room hallway scheme.

You see the foremost architrave, that was where the door was originally. I reckon it was some kind of a closet before it was a bathroom. If I were to put the door back there, get rid of the airing cupboard on the right, and the panelling I'd create a bathroom big enough for a free-standing shower.

You have exquisite taste, so you're not going to do any aesthetic damage, are you?

Too kind, I've committed howlers in the past though - even here!

The self adhesive film is quite good, but you might as well go for glass

My friend's just used that, it looks nice. It was only about £30 cheaper than the real stuff though! (I didn't like to tell her) We had a panel made up in London, it looked great and cost around £80.

 

[Nigel Watts]

Am I missing something here? Are you expecting very tall guests perhaps? Surely noone will be able to see anything they shouldn't with the glass so high up. Why cant you use plain glass, or even some coloured glass - yellow like at Sir John Soane's even?

 

[JoceAndChris]

You can see the glass when you're standing in the hallway, be you tall or be you short! Moreover, this glass is my odious view whilst lying in the bath.

Chris has just come in with all sorts of practical objections against scrapping the airing cupboard. If it must stay, I think the yellow Soane glass idea is brilliant. You can't see it very well in my last picture, but there's a narrow section of wall on the left which will have to be a continuation of the Print Room idea, so I'm keen that the glass be in keeping with prints from 1790.

 

[Feltwell]

I think that pattern of obscured glass has been around since at least the 30's, I've seen it in plenty of houses of that age. I was in my local glaziers last weekend, choosing some obscured glass - Pilkington's still do one that is very similar.

As others have said, take it out and put what you want in.

 

[essexbearhunter]

Bet this this wouldn't be anything like as odious to gaze at


Go on....you know you want to...

Or you could settle for one of those Bird Roundels set admidst plain glass.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Thanks for your posts essexbearhunter - always so interesting.

You'll think I'm absolutely tasteless when I say I prefer your fishing raptor to my bobbles. (ornithologically incorrect, I fear) However, this kind of scene is not suitable for an 18th C cottage orne! :wink:

Feltwell- I think you're spot on and this kind of glass pattern has just been going and going. I was watching a 40s film, can't remember what now, and it was prevalent.

And now for a digression.

I know the history of the cottage from 1840 onwards. John leased it, and farmed, his son Willliam leased it after him, and farmed, and William's daughter Charlotte somehow found a way to buy it when the estate was broken up at the turn of the last century. She lived here, unmarried, with her sister and an ever-changing succession of maids or lodgers (whose names appear in the electoral roll) for pretty much all of her life. She must have felt very attached to the place. In the 30s, she somehow got hold of a wadge of cash and extended the cottage and put in a toilet and bathroom. She put brass numbers on the doors, which has been surmised was for soldiers billeted here. She would have seen the bombers flying overhead and the town decimated below. I feel moved by her story, and attached to her in inexplicable ways, and can't undo what she did lightly.

Here are some pics of her work, taken in 1982, when my predecessor had just moved in. A crazed old widower was living here at that time, without electricity or central heating. He'd been in the cottage for 20 odd years and had done very little to it.

Charlotte's extension on the far right. She may also have been the one to organise the cemetitious render.

The inside of the extension. (now our music room) The fireplace, which we rebuilt using as much of the original fabric as we could, was dated 1936.

The bathroom she put in:

Her kitchen? I can't be sure of this. This is our breakfast room now; interesting to see how that exposed vaulted brick ceiling looks covered up.

I feel very lucky to have these images (and others, I won't bore you with them all) as they give such a fascinating record of the interior and exterior of the cottage in the 20th century, and how the owners lived. As so often happens, clearly poverty is responsible for the preservation of much that is interesting here.

It is the old dilemma that faces us all, cherish the ongoing story of the history of our houses or try to recreate the aesthetic beauty of its original state.

 

[Feltwell]

It's very lucky that you've managed to get hold of some old interior pictures. We've got an exterior photo from, we guess, the early 80's, but that's it - although I have got a lovely aerial picture from the early 50's of the brewery behind my house, which shows my house as well as many buildings that are no longer here, the brewery itself having been knocked down in 1970.

My house survived relatively unscathed as it was always either rented out or lived in by the company secretary of the brewery - from the day it was built up until 1984, when Greenall Whitley finally sold it off. Most of the few changes that have happened were after then - the chief crime being removing fireplaces, there is only 1 original left (plus 1 that is broken and in the cellar).

It is somewhat depressing though to find out how recently some changes have happened. Our kitchen still had it's full original Victorian range up until 8 years ago, when the previous owner put a new kitchen in and, in her words, "they had to smash that old range up to get it out".

 

[JoceAndChris]

Heart-breaking to read your last sentence Feltwell. The fireplaces too, so, so sad.

But you're lucky to have so many features remaining.

 

[Carol]

Am v. jealous of your interior pictures. Do you still have the bath and basin in situ ?

Our house was a business from 1900 until 1979 and much of the personal details were removed or covered over. We know a locally famous (well big in Bath!) architect lived here with his family for some years before this and I would love to know how they organised themselves and their servants.

On the glass, it is identical to the stuff in all of the back doors of my childhood cul-de-sac home in Surrey, built in the early thirties. Could you commission a new piece of glass artwork for that panel?

 

[JoceAndChris]

No, I allowed the bath to be sold under my very nose.

I'll copy that bathroom when I get the chance.

Thanks for your input regarding the glass. Glass artwork is a possibility. I'm itching to have the house done, (pretentious I know!) but I think tiles would lend themselves a lot better to it. I saw Belton House done in tiles by a local artist in a kitchen showroom; it was stunning.

 

[AMc]

If it were mine I would either put plain glass in and spray etch it yourself if you have the time/skill/inclination or just go for plain satinised glass. Even the biggest bits of plain or satinised glass toughened glass we had were under £20. Back in London we used privacy film on the lower sashes of our large bay and got change from £30.

 

[MdB]

This worked for us though I guess it is too much of a modern style for you Joce.

It is a piece of finely frosted glass with a piece of mirrored acrylic stuck to it.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Ooh - the temptation to give a false instruction would be too great! Does anyone else feel a yearning to put the compost in the box marked "Housekeeping" and the needles in the box marked "Shoe Polish"? I have problems with being told what to do!

Seriously though, that's very cool and slick but wouldn't work here.

Thanks for all the ideas guys!

 

[Nigel Watts]

What's above the kitchen door then: Cook? Iron?

I wont ask what it says above the bedroom door.

 

[MdB]

Follow the link over there --> and you might find out why we have that word over the bathroom door...

 

[Feltwell]

:lol: I sussed it Colin, but then I had prior knowledge!