"Most houses are the same components, just arranged differently. To find something that is one-of-a-kind is really quite rare," said Wayne Cain of Cain Inc. Architectural Art Glass, who for the past 34 years has been designing and crafting custom-made art beveled glass windows for clients in Richmond and other areas.

This decorative leaded glass window by Stained Glass Creations is in the master bath of an Orleans Homebuilders' model in the Raleigh subdivision.

IN MANY ROOMS From skylights to entryways, family rooms and bathrooms, Cain creates glass pieces using machinery from the early 1900s in his workshop in Bremo Bluff.

"We do lamp working where you take a rod of glass and work it over flames and create three dimensional leaves and dogwood flowers. We also do glass carving as well as sculptured soldering metal work. Then we do beveled around the edges so you have a sparkling stained-glass window," he said.

Diane Fairburn, owner of Stained Glass Creations in Hanover, says her clients are looking for privacy in the entryway door or the bathroom area, or for ideas for a big window where a standard window treatment would be difficult. "It keeps the natural light in the room rather than having to open and close a blind morning and evening." Fairburn's glass is custom made to .t windows already in place in your home. The custom glass is set up against the existing clear glass window and held in place using caulk or a trim piece.

The skylight in this Franklin Street home was created by Wayne Cain of Cain Architectural Art Glass.

"We do not remove the customer's glass that is already in place," said Fairburn, adding that it takes six to eight weeks to make a custom-made stained-glass piece from the first meeting with the client to installation.

SALVAGE CAN BE TREASURE If your tastes run to the historic, Richmond's long history makes it a treasure-trove for antique architectural pieces salvaged from old houses that can be incorporated into a new home.

"In new construction, people who are looking to put a bit of character in the house will come here," says Ellen Norris about Landmark Reclamation Co. in Richmond, where she gets a lot of unique items for her interior design company, Caryatid Interior Design.

As an antique and architectural salvage company, Landmark carries parts and pieces from old historic homes. Partners Chris McCracken and Leigh Powell buy and sell items and also have a cabinetry shop to help customers with special projects.

Matthew Martin hand hewed recycled oak logs to build this island/bar in his kitchen. Martin, the owner of Matthew Martin General Contracting that builds handmade log homes and cottages, said it took two years to find just the right curved log to fit. The bar top is made of live edge oak slabs. Martin enjoyed crafting his bar stools out of solid pine log slabs.

You can take an old mantel and cut the sides off and hang it as a shelf. Or how about taking a piece of old porch gingerbread and using it as a headboard for a bed? Old shutters hung on a wall become a catch-all for mail. Or an old metal floor register adds style when incorporated into a fence. Old doors are now new wainscoting or stained glass out of an old church is now a kitchen cabinet door.

CARVED BRACKETS "One thing people buy is the corbel brackets that are wood brackets that you would see under the eaves of an old building and they are carved with details and scrolls. They run anywhere from 1½ feet tall and 8 to 10 inches thick, and people use them under islands to hold up counters or as shelf supports," said Jimmy Kastelberg, owner of Caravati's Salvage Yard Inc. in Richmond's South Side.

Caravati's has been salvaging and purchasing items from old Virginia homes and buildings for decades. Fancy iron work from old fences and gates is popular for pot racks, Kastelberg said. And a staple at Caravati's are old cobblestones that homeowners use for bordering driveways, gardens and building retaining walls.

The whir of an old electric motor breaks the silence in the pastoral setting of Bremo Bluff, Virginia. Wayne Cain of Cain Architectural Art Glass is meticulously crafting another beveled glass window, transom, door or skylight that will soon grace the halls of someone's home.

Though most glass bevelers today use modern high speed diamond equipment, Cain uses machinery that dates to the early 1900s in the old weathered barn with a wood burning stove that serves as his shop.

Above, Cain shows a sample of one of his designs. His shop is in an old barn, heated with a coal stove, behind his home.

"Twenty-five years ago, I found some old beveling equipment at a Richmond glass shop that was being stored and they sold it to me," says artist Cain. "I could not find any old bevelers and could not find any literature on it, so basically I started tinkering and playing with it until I learned to make angled beveled glass." As a self-taught artist, he had been making painted glass, stained glass, carved glass and decorative pieces for about nine years when he got the machinery.

Each piece of glass in a beveled design is shaped, ground and polished on the five different machines made around .9.5 by Henry Lang. Cain first grinds the glass on the roughing mill to make an edge, then gives it a finished edge on the fine roughing mill. Then he takes it to the stone smoothing wheel and uses water to produce a satin finish.

On the cork machine, Cain uses pumice on the four-inch cork wheel to polish the piece. Then on the four-inch wide felt wheel on the polishing machine he uses cerium oxide to create the finished piece. The entire process takes about 20 to 30 minutes for each piece. Then all the pieces are connected with lead to create the final product.

But while Cain's methods in the workshop are old school, he uses the Internet in his office to show clients the progress on their designs.

"The Internet has changed the whole course of how we do the business, opening up my work to more people and letting them be a part of the process," said Cain. "My work is very laborious but it is for people who want something truly hand done. I think of it as a new art form and I love what I do."