THE ARTISAN CHRONICLES

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

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

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’

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.

How the systems meant to save our historic homes may be silently letting them rot. In the world of historic preservation, good intentions...