THE ARTISAN CHRONICLES

Across America, historic house communities are quietly slipping toward a point of no return. Windows rot. Skills disappear. Trades fragment. Well-intentioned repairs fail. And each generation loses a little more of the knowledge required to care for the homes that define their neighborhoods. What if there were a way to stop that decline—not with a one-off project, not with a temporary grant, but with a permanent, regenerating system rooted directly in the community?

(And the Three Trades That Make Them Possible) Total Window Makeover students admiring their work When people talk about restoring historic windows, most of the conversation centers on paint, glazing, or sash repair. That’s understandable — the sash is what you see. It’s what shows up in photos and videos. It’s what most DIY articles focus on. But here’s the truth: You cannot truly restore a historic window by focusing on just one part. To put a window back into its intended

A Six-Month Plan to Restore Your Home and Build Local Skill Stop looking or waiting for years. Train your Artisan today! There’s a bottleneck in historic window restoration. Homeowners call around. They get quotes that feel astronomical. They’re told the waitlist is two or three years long. And eventually someone says: “Just replace them.” But what if the problem isn’t the windows? What if the problem is capacity? A Different Way to Think About Restoration Every time we run

How a Window Craft Outpost Can Turn a Historic House Neighborhood Around There’s a quiet crisis unfolding in historic house communities across America. Windows are failing. Homes are being written off. Entire neighborhoods are told, “It can’t be saved.” So replacement windows roll in. Demolition follows. And something much bigger than wood and glass disappears. We lose the artisans. We lose the trade. We lose the knowledge that once kept these places alive. But there is  anot

And tomorrow, I’m taking the Sash Factory into a client’s driveway in Hyde Park. We’re going to build window sash on site. Not as a stunt. Not as a demo. Not for social media. To get the job done. And to prove something that matters. Historic house communities don’t need distant specialists. They need local capacity. They need artisans who can show up, set up, make what’s needed, install it, and move on. They need teams.

Recently, I watched a conversation unfold among a group of passionate, capable window restoration professionals. The topic wasn’t technique. It wasn’t materials. It wasn’t even historic theory. It was survival. People were talking about burnout. Feast-and-famine cycles. Pricing anxiety. Emotional exhaustion. The strain of doing everything alone. What struck me wasn’t the frustration—it was how universal it was. Nearly everyone identified as a solo operator. Nearly everyone ad

A simple question came up recently in a Facebook group: “Anyone ever use Red Devil window glazing? It says it’s oil based… not latex like DAP. I prefer Sarco but we’re in a bind and need to finish a job.” It’s a familiar situation. Every window restorer eventually faces it. Two respected voices offered thoughtful replies. John Rodgers, president of the Window Preservation Alliance, explained that most traditional glazing compounds will technically work.

Why historic windows keep falling through the cracks — and what Window Craft changes. Recently, a simple pricing conversation surfaced something much deeper about how historic windows are typically serviced. It started with numbers. Different restorers shared what they might charge to restore a set of damaged historic windows. The prices were all over the map — some higher, some surprisingly low. At first glance, it looked like a normal trade discussion. But as the conversati

I took a photo recently of a house in San Antonio that quietly says everything about what Window Craft really is. At first glance, it just looks like a handsome historic façade. But if you actually look at it the way an artisan reads a job, you see something deeper: Two small oval windows flanking the front door. A lace-like transom over the entry. Normal 6-over-6 and 8-over-8 double-hung windows above. And gothic arched windows up in the attic that I personall

Zero Competition Isn’t Just a Crisis It’s the Best Opportunity This Trade Has Had in 100 Years There’s a quiet truth that’s been sharpening for me. And I don’t think most people in the historic window world have really absorbed it yet. If there is zero competition in historic window restoration right now… That doesn’t just mean the craft is broken. It means there has never been a better time to get involved in it. Seriously

If nobody is there to stop someone from building a monopoly, why wouldn’t they build one? Why wouldn’t they expand regionally? Why wouldn’

In Window Craft, there are two workshops that are often treated as separate: Intro to Sash Making Total Window Makeover They can  be taken independently. But in practice, they were designed—through experience—to complete one another. Together, they form a full and well-rounded introduction to Window Craft, and they give a student a real advantage the moment they step into real historic window work. This post is about why. The Window as a Whole The Total Window Makeover  was d

For as long as I’ve been in the trades, I’ve heard the same phrases repeated again and again. “Good help is hard to find.” “Clients don’t understand the work.” “People won’t pay for quality.” “The next generation doesn’t care.” “The skills are disappearing.

There is a frustration shared by many people working around historic windows. Are you one of those working hard to restore historic windows? They care. They show up. They work hard. They want to help. And yet, again and again, the work feels heavier than it should. Projects drag on. Fixes don’t hold. The same problems reappear under new disguises. Effort increases while clarity and margin disappear. This frustration is often misunderstood as personal failure — not skilled eno

Across every historic neighborhood in America, the same truth quietly echoes through the cracks of peeling paint and the rattling of century-old sashes: our windows are calling out for help. And when the windows go, the rest of the house soon follows. But here’s the good news—if we save the windows, we save the community. Not just aesthetically. Not just symbolically. Literally. Historic windows are the keystones of our built heritage.

Many consider John Leeke the godfather of the modern historic window restoration movement. Long before Facebook groups and YouTube tutorials

Every historic house tells a story. Its windows—the eyes of the home—are often the first to show signs of age. Painted shut, rotting, or even replaced with vinyl, these windows can seem like a lost cause. But here’s the truth: they can be restored. And you can learn how. This fall, the Total Window Makeover Workshop is coming to the historic 1929 Hotel Seville in Harrison, Arkansas. Over the course of five days, you’ll gain hands-on experience in Window Craft—a trade that

WindowFest + WindowLympics (Oct 27–Nov 7, Harrison, AR): Two weeks of hands-on training, real-world competitions, and an artisan community built around the Five Pillars of Window Craft. Come learn. Come compete. Come belong.

Let’s talk about the Sash Factory—not just the tool itself, but the world it opens up. When used inside the framework of Window Craft, it becomes a game-changer. Sure, I can sell you a unit. You can roll it out in a field, driveway, garage—anywhere—and make a sash. But the true power of the Sash Factory doesn’t lie in its mobility. It lies in what it enables when paired with the right system, structure, and team. Not Just a Machine—A Movement Building a sash isn’t just w

From the framing crew to the pulpit, from crown moulding to window sashes, my journey wasn’t marked by clarity—but by obedience. Only now do