Blog du Wren

Winedow

I couldn't be more proud to present...my Winedow, the product of many months of pondering, pent up enthusiasm*, experimentation, and hope. It turned out great and I can't wait to get it installed in my cabin and see it in the wild.

As you might have guessed from the ever-so-clever name, it is a window made of wine bottles. I have heard of (and even seen) a few of these in the real world, but nothing exactly like what I wanted, so I had to just wing it. I've briefly outlined the steps I used below. If you are wanting to try this yourself, please feel free to contact me with more questions.

Get a bunch of wine bottles. I tried to get a variety of colors with different thumb indentions.
Cut the bottles. The method I used for cutting was to score the outside of the bottle in a jig, then to pour a thin stream of boiling water over the score followed by a thin stream of cold water. This causes a nice cut.
Get a frame. I used cross-section of a metal 55-gallon barrel, about 1 foot tall.
With the frame sitting flat against the ground, fill it with sand, which allows for positioning of unevenly cut bottles, and holds them in place while filling in the gaps.
Once the bottles are arranged in the sand, fill in the gaps with expanding foam, up to 2-3 from the top surface*.
Fill the rest of the way up on the gaps with mortar. I( left about .5-1 inch of the bottle exposed.
Let set and dry for a couple days and voila!

The project is only half done, really. I still have to finish the , which I plan to do with a solid piece of frosted glass, edged with a decorative piece of rope(?). Then, of course, I have to install it. Once in place, I'm sure it will warrant another post with lots of pictures, but in the meantime, it is [in all it's glory].

Wednesday April 11 2012

File under: misc

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on Wed 11th Apr, 2012 09:35 pm PDT Mom said:
Did you mention all the wine I HAD to drink to supply you with these bottles? Credit where credit is due...
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on Thu 12th Apr, 2012 01:45 am PDT Horge said:
I've seen the wine bottle effect installed in a straw-bale house in AZ, but I have to say yours looks much nicer. The one I saw was just a few bottles stuck in between bales and not as a full on window. Which side goes outside the cabin? Any way you could magnify incoming sunlight to create a stronger light?
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