A window on my marriage

When we did our walk-through of the house yesterday, Barry the plumber arrived. He is the most upbeat, sunny person I've met since I've been here--and I've met a lot of sunny people. Anyway, we are replacing all the radiators, not something originally planned and, like everything else, inflating the cost. But Barry is selling us the radiators at cost, or 60% below retail. As with Ian, I have total faith that Barry is doing an excellent job and is working as hard as he can to keep things moving (I think the electrican is the hold up). Barry works with seven different carpenters and he says Ian is by far the best.

David and I spent the rest of the day combing through a salvage yard and a massive antique store looking for a window or windows to integrate into the large window dividing the kitchen and the conservatory. We found nothing, but I loved looking. Check out some of the stuff at Balinderry Antiques--an old mill full of room after room of furniture. I get weak in the knees looking at some of the things there.

Back to the headline on this post. I want a few panels of leaded glass or stained glass to form a border or a fake transom for the 51" by 54" window in the middle of the conservatory wall. After an hour on e-bay, I've come up with three proposals. David is anti-all my proposals. He wants a plain sheet of glass. I think incorporating something you find at an architectural salvage shop gives your house some character--particularly in the kitchen where everything will be new construction. David has offered to let me put up decals to mimic stained glass. Sigh.

I may lose this battle because I told David he could make decisions in the kitchen (he does all the cooking after all) if I can make the living room and dining room as pretty as I want (i.e. overrule his preference for everything to be white). Anyone want to venture an opinion? If you look at yesterday's photos and see the window at the right side of the conservatory, and picture one just like it on the left, should the one in between be a plate glass? Or divided into, say, six panels? If we aren't doing any leaded or stain glass, I think there should at least be mullions.

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