Why Intro to Sash Making and Total Window Makeover Belong Together
- Steve Quillian
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
In Window Craft, there are two workshops that are often treated as separate:
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 designed as an introduction to the window as a complete system.
Not just a sash.
Not just paint.
Not just hardware.
The window as a functioning unit in the wall.
In that workshop, students learn:
What every part of a window is called
What each part is for
How the parts relate to one another
How to take a window apart and put it back together
How the three elements of every window work together: the sash, the frame, and the mechanics
We start with the wall.
Then the mechanics.
Then the frame.
Then the sash.
From there, we introduce the Five Pillars of Window Craft and the basic movements within each pillar.
This is not a deep specialization course.
It is a foundational course.
The goal is not mastery.
The goal is understanding.
To give a person a clear mental model of what a window is, how it works, and how the work is properly sequenced.
For that reason, Total Window Makeover usually works on what I call “gimme windows”—windows where all the parts are intact and serviceable—so students can focus on learning the system, not fighting missing parts.
The Problem the Field Keeps Presenting
Here is the reality that every window restorer eventually encounters:
Sashes are often missing, wrong, or beyond their service life.
The bottom sash is gone
The top sash was replaced with a stage-prop placeholder
The profiles are wrong
The joinery has failed
The geometry no longer fits the frame
The original framework of restoration assumed intact parts.
Experience proved otherwise.
Again and again, the work presented a simple question:
What do you do when the sash you need does not exist?
That question is why Intro to Sash Making exists.
How Intro to Sash Making Completes the Circle
Intro to Sash Making gives a student something most restoration training never does:
The ability to replace what history has already taken away.
In that workshop, a student learns how to:
Build a sash from raw stock
Control geometry and fit
Cut traditional joinery
Produce parts that can be tuned to real frames
Replace missing or failed components accurately
This changes everything.
Without sash making, a restorer is limited to:
Windows that happen to survive intact
Repairs that are sometimes slower than replacement
Projects that stall when a critical part is missing
With sash making, a restorer gains:
Independence
Completion power
The ability to finish almost any window the field presents
In that sense, Intro to Sash Making brings Total Window Makeover full circle.
It closes the one gap that restoration alone cannot fill.
Total Window Makeover teaches:
How the window works
How the system is sequenced
How the parts relate
Intro to Sash Making teaches:
How to replace the part that most often fails
How to restore geometry when it is lost
How to keep a project moving when history has already removed a component
Together, they produce something rare:
A student who understands:
The whole
The parts
The process
The production side
The restoration side
This is a powerful combination.
The Sash Factory Effect
When someone takes Intro to Sash Making and then takes home a Sash Factory, something accelerates very quickly.
They gain:
Production capacity
Speed
Control over quality
The ability to respond immediately when a sash is missing
This is not just training.
It is infrastructure.
It supercharges a person’s ability to operate in the real world of historic windows.
The Outpost Effect
When someone takes:
Intro to Sash Making
Total Window Makeover
And then decides to build or manage an outpost
They are no longer just learning a trade.
They are preparing to build a local system.
They now have:
Technical foundation
Production capability
Process understanding
Leadership pathway
Metrics and apprenticeship structure
This instantly sets them apart from most of the window restoration world.
They are no longer limited to fixing individual windows.
They are positioned to serve an entire historic house community.
In Closing
Total Window Makeover teaches you how a window works.
Intro to Sash Making teaches you what to do when the window cannot be made to work without rebuilding its heart.
Together, they give a person a rare and practical advantage:
The ability to finish almost any window they encounter—and to build something sustainable around that ability.
That is why, although these workshops are independent, they were never meant to stand alone.
They belong together.
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