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Im Falschen Fenster
I was having a Martha Stewart moment. A large windowless wall on the front of our house was the perfect setting for a cottage window framed with country shutters and a flower box.
Judy had recently redone the front bathroom and had me replace the old door mirror with one more to her taste. Being that I throw away nothing, I found that I now had two of the Kmart door mirrors, one cracked, but still too good to toss. The perfect items for my window.
Each mirror was 2 feet wide and 4 feet tall, so mounted side by side or one above the other, would equal a 4X4 foot window.
My neighbor from across the street saw me gathering my supplies and knew I had some project to tell him about. I told him how I was going to hang the mirrors, one above the other and frame them to look like a window, creating panes from the slats of leftover door moldings and lattice for shutters.
He looked at the wall, the pile, the mirrors, my tools and me, saying he still didn’t see how I could make a window like that, and he walked back over to his house and left me to my task.
All went as planned, except that the mirror that wasn’t cracked, became so during the process, and the mirror that was cracked, cracked again in a new place once the sun came out and heated it up.
The project went well and the flower box was the finishing touch. Covered with painted butterflies, caterpillars, bees, flowers and other critters, it had a nice homey look. I picked up some plastic frogs, butterflies and birds from the dollar store and some real flowers to complete my new window. The cracks gave it added character which altered the reflection from the sky to give it added interest. It actually looked like a real window from the street.
My neighbor came back by later as I was in the front yard admiring my work.
“Carl, that really looks good!”
“Thanks. I’m pleased with the results. So you like it?”
“I sure do. I bet it lets a lot more light into your bedroom.”
“It’s a mirror!”
“Oh, now I get it. It’s one of those mirrors that you can look out of, but not into. Right?”
“Right. See ya later….. through my window.”
It does look like a real window, especially from the angle looking up from down on the road with the trees and sky reflecting back, but he saw the two mirrors before I even put them up and he still thinks it’s a real window.
That led me to name my window. An old German fairytale involving a pair of young lovers wanting to elope against her father’s wishes, made plans to leave that night. He would climb a ladder, tap upon her window and she would come with him to live happily ever after. He did climb the ladder and he did tap upon the window, but alas! It was her father’s window. He was looking into the wrong window, im der falsche fenster. The false window.
So now my window has a name, Im Falschen Fenster. Come by and see it sometime. It does look real, but my bedroom remains quite dark.
Im
Falschen Fenster
Photo by Carl Palmer
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