Coming Home

Hello Friends.  I know it has been some time that I have written.  I have been traveling a bit for work which has delayed substantial work on the house.  I have however made progress albeit in my mind small.  I did however have something very exciting happen to me.

As some of you may be aware, when I purchased the house all the stained glass were missing.  My next door neighbor who owns the other style of the Keller Row homes has nearly all of her windows intact.  8 out of the 9 windows in that house are wonderfully rich and unusual in my opinion.  Here are the windows that remain there:

My other neighbor has only 1 out of the possible 9 windows of stained glass.  Interestingly enough the house that only has the one window, is the missing window in my other neighbor's house that has 8 of their 9 windows.  Here is the one window that the other neighbor has:

So that is the extent of the original stained glass of the Keller Row homes that we knew of.  I wanted to have my stained glass put back, but with no knowledge of what would have been there, I copied  my neighbor's house and had mine made based off those designs:

So that was that and I accepted that I would probably never know what was in the house let alone where they went.  About a year or two after I moved in I was speaking to my one of my neighbors and she told me that she knew where one of my stained glass windows was living.  Wait what?! Where is it I thought? I must find out!  The neighbor told me that the people who had it were former colleagues of her ex husband and that was all she knew.  I contacted her ex husband and he gave me a name.  I contacted the person having no idea whether they actually had the window or not, but I was hot on the trail and I wanted to see where it would take me.  I spoke to a woman on the other line and she informed me that she did indeed have a window from my house.  I immediately asked if I could come over and see it, and she kindly agreed.  Her home was only 20 minutes from my house and when I arrived she had a beautiful stained glass window hanging in her living room.  "There it is." she said and I was awestruck.

 She told me that she would often drive by my house in the 1970s and had admired the beautiful window.  One day she knocked on the door and asked the owner if he was interested in selling the window.  Since the window was behind a drop ceiling in the dining room, he agreed as it was of no use to him.  The woman paid him $40 for the window and her husband carefully removed the window and boarded up the old frame.  She brought the window home and had the frame you see above built for it.  There my dining room window remained for the next 40 years.  After she told me the story I asked, no frankly begged for her to sell it back to me.  She wasn't interested in even considering the thought after having it hang in her house for so long, I suspect it became part of her family so to speak.  I left her home that day feeling excited that I knew what I was missing, but also sad because I couldn't have it back it its rightful place.  I accepted that I would just have to have the pattern copied like I had done with the other windows.  Several years after I met the woman with my window I wrote her a letter asking her if she was interested in selling it.  This first letter was sent in 2008 and I never got a reply back.  I figured she was still not interested.  At the end of April 2015 I was heading out of town for work, but for some reason the window popped into my head again and I wrote another passionate letter asking if I could buy the window back.   About a week after I sent the letter I got a call from the woman.  She was ready to talk about returning the window.  I couldn't believe it, my jaw nearly dropped.  I asked to meet when I returned to talk a bit more about bringing this jewel home.  I went to her house one early Monday morning.  I brought with me a bouquet of flowers and she invited me into her home, a bit teary eyed at my presence.  She apologized for being a bit sad, but it was an emotional day for her.  The woman had since moved and the window was in a room where it was not a focal point.  She and I placed the window on a chair and began to talk.  "I like you" she said "and if I didn't like you I wouldn't even consider this."  The letter I had sent her a few weeks ago must have begun her though process, but she said her friends helped tip the scale in my favor.  "My friends said 'Would I miss it (the window) more than you would love it?'".  She said no and that is what prompted her call me.  With the window on the chair, she had her hands on one corner and I had my hands on the other.  We spoke for a bit about the house renovation and of how she got the window.  We stood there with both our hands on the window talking for about an hour.  She was sad, but happy to see it go home.  I was sad for her pain, but also so excited.  Eventually she told me it was time for me to bring it home and she took her hands off the window.  I thanked her and told her the flowers I brought here were a small consolation to the flowers in the window she was giving up.  I invited her over to the house for a tour to see the window back in its spot one day.  I left that day with a few tears in my eyes, out of joy and love.  I thanked her for taking such great care of the window and that without her, who knows where the window would have ended up.  I raced home to put my baby back home.  I carefully cleaned the window and hung it up, back home where it had been gone for nearly 40 years.  Every day I look of it I think of the woman who loved it so much, and loved it as much as I do.  After nearly 10 years of seeing this window for the first time, I had succeeded in bringing my baby home and I couldn't be happier and I think my home is a bit happier too.

The stunning colors cast beautiful jewel and rainbow tones in the room.  Since this side faces south it gets beautiful, direct sunlight throughout the day.

Every time I look at it I think of the woman who cherished it so much until it was time to come home.  In an odd way I feel we were meant to meet.  It was fate maybe that without everything falling into place and me not giving up for 10 years that my beautiful window finally came home..




If you like what you read on my blog and would like to contribute to the house restoration please click the donate button below. All donations will be GREATLY appreciated!! You will also be publicly thanked if you wish on a contributes page I hope to add at some point in the future.