2x4 Rear Console Finishing and Glazing

See how I built the console

Our house is full of old jalousie windows; it is pretty standard where I live.  So spare jalousies are like a pest problem, because they are usually only imagined as glass louvers.  When they are no longer needed as louvers, they hang around in stacks in garages, like mine.  It struck me that our jalousies are sturdy, perhaps tempered, glass panes that could become a free glass accent for our rear console.

After two days of building, I worked over the period of 3 days to finish the console while making the bracelet display for Humble Ride Apparel.  This console marks the first time I had worked with glass and glazing compound, and now have our first mixed material furnishing:

The finishing and glazing journey

Tools - Finishing

• Wood filler
• Makita finish sander
• 100 and 150 grit sandpaper
• Olympic Royal Purple in Semi-Gloss
• Linser Best angled paint brush

Tools - Glazing

• Flooring transition strips
• Titebond III and clamps
• Finishing nails
• Nail set
• Glass cutting wheel
• Old shirt for collecting glass shards
• Small carpenter's square
• Glazing compound
• Latex caulk
• Caulking gun
• Frog Tape

I thankfully had purchased or was given all of these materials for other projects for our house, so the rear console still cost me $10 in dedicated costs.

After seeing a video on how to cut glass for framing, I retrieved an old t-shirt, lay my jalousie down, measured, and used a carpenter's square to mark a straight cutting line.  I then used the glass cutting tool as suggested in the video to score the glass.  I lay the glass over a scrap 2x4, and gently pushed down on a few inches away from the score line to cut the glass.  I made a mistake 3 times when I tried to cut off the glass off a smaller leftover jalousie, but thankfully, I had other glass to use.

These flooring strips (I think) had been in our garage for years.  It just so happened that the width of the lip was just about the width of the jalousies, so I was happy to give this piece of wood a new home.  I used Titebond III and clamps to adhere the trim on the inside of my 2x4 frame.  When it was adhered well, I took extra precaution and tacked in a few finishing nails into the trim and frame and countersunk them with a nail set.

I didn't build the console to fit the glass, but I was amazed that the width of 12 jalousies was a perfect fit for the width of the console opening.  I love when that happens.

After this step, I lay the glass in place, just light when I test fitted the pieces.  The glazing compound had an almost putty like consistency, a little different than caulking or construction adhesive.

I wondered if the glass edges were too sharp to leave exposed.  I ran my finger along the edge and... cut myself (hah).  I found a tube of latex caulk, applied Frog Tape as a boundary between where the caulk should go, and where it should not.  I smoothed the caulking with a wet finger and let it dry 2 hours.

I didn't remove the tape until after I put a coat of paint over the caulking and parts of the glass.  When I removed it, a fairly clean line was left.  I ran my finger along the edges again and remained cut free this time (hah, again).

Here's what the console looks like now, with caulk and paint overlapping the glass edge and making it look a little more uniform with that relatively straight line.

As the sun set, I snapped a photo of our herringbone console table filling in and making due for our lack of an appropriate table, and what the area behind our sofas looked like with our 2x4 rear console.  Then, I returned the herringbone console to the space it was custom made for and breathed a sigh of relief.

What surprised me the most was that my husband liked our deep purple console.  He didn't gush about the beautiful purple tone, or the way the worn glass had  paired nicely with it, or the fact that it was the perfect size for our rear home theater gear, but I knew he by his quiet, "Hmm, nice" that it's what he meant.  :)

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