Featured Project: Stained Glass Conservation for Hopewell Church

Recently, we have been focusing more of our efforts on stained glass conservation. In Salt Lake City, there are a number of historic stained glass windows that are old enough to be antiques. If these windows are not restored, it’s unlikely that they’ll survive in the future. Right now, we are getting calls from property owners all throughout the country who are noticing signs of deterioration in their stained glass.

While a great deal of our time is spent in Salt Lake City, our team will occasionally travel to other locations to perform a restoration. Just recently, we had the opportunity to work on a project for a beautiful set of windows located in the small town of Holly Springs, Mississippi. Below, we’ve discussed the project in detail.

Restoring the Stained Glass in the Hopewell Church

The committee members of the Hopewell Church contact us after their stained glass had been damaged by an intense windstorm. There were three windows and two had been severely damaged. One had its lower half shattered completely by the strong winds. The other was missing both the upper and lower panels, which were also shattered entirely.

However, there was some of the original glass remaining. Because the windows were historic, the church did not want to replace them entirely. As stained glass conservationists, we wholeheartedly agreed – the original glass must be preserved at all costs! We searched long and hard, looking for glass of a similar profile. But we could not find an exact match.

The Solution: Combining New & Old Materials

After a great deal of deliberation, we decided the best option was to mix old and new glass together. This way, we could save some of the original glass. This approach would also have the best aesthetic outcome. Instead of building three new panels that wouldn’t match exactly, we could make all six look the same.

We took apart the panels that were still in tact. Then, we mixed the old glass with new and rebuilt all six panels. When we were finished, we reinstalled the panels in the window frames. Once complete, you couldn’t even tell that the storm damage ever happened! The windows looked beautiful and they all matched with each other, maintaining the appearance that they were from the same set.