Chicken Wire an Old Window

Driving home from work one day, my sister noticed an old window left out for the trash. Being from the same mother as me, she pulled over and snatched it up. Of course, she waited for me to come over on the weekend to do anything with it, she's still a lazy sibling.

This instructable is strictly on fitting the chicken wire to the opening from the former pane, but I will have a later one coming on the whole project.

Warning! Please be careful when working with blades, glass, old windows (lead paint) etc. Life is too great to ruin it on something silly and preventable. Warning!

This particular project was rather simple, so the materials were few and the overall price was cheap.

Window (free)
Window scraper ($2.29)
Chicken wire - 1 foot per pane ($0.63) x2
Scissors
Tacks or Staples

Total - $3.89

For our window, paint was the only thing keeping the glass in place. After struggling with the paint scraper, I realized that I had to manually insert the blade that I had accidentally thrown away. Oops. No harm done though, because the bag was full and the blades were sitting on top.

With the blade in place, the paint peeled away very easily and we pushed the glass out by lightly knocking it. I accidentally broke one piece, but I tried to salvage as much as I could, since it was important for another feature that will be in the later instructable.

For my window, I only had two openings that needed chicken wire. So, I cut two squares of chicken wire to size. But if your wiring the whole thing, I would suggest rolling the wire across the back as a whole and tacking into place.

My life isn't that simple though. I cut the wire to size using heavy duty kitchen scissors, but if you have a wire cutter, by all means, use that. My attempt of flattening the wire by placing the window on top of it overnight didn't work. So, I had to make the size of the chicken wire smaller than the size of the opening in the back. Then, I tacked it in place using clear tacks from a packet we had. I wouldn't say this method is too effective, staples would have worked better. Also, the shorter the length of the nail part of the tack, the better, since the wood is thin in between panes. But, you gotta do whatcha gotta do. If you're using tacks, just play with it a little till you get your desired positioning.


The last picture is to show the backside of the window. Yes, we also used tacks to hold up the glass because were lazy.

Finally, your done and you can admire your work. Or, in my case, leave it with your sister, go home, and ask her to send you pictures ten minutes after being away from it.

Sorry for the low quality after pictures, Pinterest-esque ones will be available when the final instrucatable is published.

Thanks so much!