Without a doubt, the stained glass window is a unique element of the interior. Internet is flooded with beautiful pictures of interiors decorated with colorful windows: from classic, elegant apartments to modern avant-garde lofts. How not to get lost in this vast amount of inspirations and choose something suitable for us?
What type of the stained glass fits your interior?
Before we order a stained glass window, it is worth considering the effect we want to achieve and plan our next steps accordingly. Each interior has a different purpose and character, so planning a decorative glazing, we must answer such questions:
-Is our window supposed to hide the view or should it be transparent?
-Do we want a bright, luminous space or a dark, cosy interior with appealing play of colored lights?
-Do we want our stained glass piece to be a dominant, a strong, eye-catching element or rather a soft and delicate complement to the interior?
One type of stained glass will match the spacious and bright living room or kitchen, another one would be recommended for a library or a quiet office. For a bathroom we will choose yet another one - the one that will meet both conditions: decorative and functional (it has to be an opaque shutter).
Same for the commercial spaces: to e.g. store display we will choose something that wouldn't hide the exposition, for cafe's and restaurants the main issue is to create the nice ambience, the relation inside-outside is not crucial.
Another important thing are the surroundings - a beautiful landscape or gray, repulsive buildings and noisy street. Knowing that wewill be able to decide what tybe of division we want to create.
Once we consider all these issues, it will be much easier for us to decide what type of stained glass window will be suitable for our needs. In the following classification, we show three types of stained glass, made of three different types of glass: transparent, semi-transparent and opaque. Of course, a lot depends also on the project itself. By playing with the composition, we can also moderate the interior / exterior relation and the transition between them. It also happens that we combine different types of glass in one stained-glass window. However, we hope that such simplified systematization will help to understand the relationship between the type of glass and the final character of the stained glass window.
TRANSPARENT GLASS
Clear or slightly tinted.
Such stained glass let in a lot of light into the interior, provide an outside view (exact or slightly distorted, depending on the degree of "waving").
SEMI-TRANSPARENT GLASS
in vivid colors
The outline of objects can be seen behind colored glasses: trees, buildings, window bars.
OPAQUE GLASS
Matt glass with texture
this type is used mainly for the 'tiffany' technique. Such glass isolates from the outside. They also limit the amount of incoming light.
FUSING
Similar issues concern fused glass panles.
This technique offers a wide range of possibilities. By grading the color and density of the pattern, we can achieve different degrees of transparency.
Clear fuses glass with texture and small amount of color.
The exterior soothly interweave with the inside. In form of blurry splashes of color it becomes a part of the project.
Textured fused glass in vivid colors
This technique allows us to create semi-transparent or opaque divisions in sexpressive style.
