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worth of work just doing window res- toration for schools, businesses, and courthouses all around the area," he says. Hull has since held free window workshops in a dozen small towns and big cities throughout Texas, including Dallas and Fort Worth. The workshops continue to bring in new business. Hull restored windows for the 1920s Kimp- ton Pittman Hotel in Dallas, which opened in July, and has begun work on windows for a 100-year-old school for Fort Worth ISD, along with large projects in San Francisco, Denver, and Louisiana. received teaching his first historic win- dow repair workshop, when more than 50 people filled the small room. "I didn't think it would be well attended, but we had builders show up, we had homeowners who wanted to learn to do it. We even had other contractors showing up," he says. "It really opened my eyes to the interest people have in preservation." It also opened a booming new av- enue of business for his company, Hull Millwork. "After the first workshop, a lot of people contacted us, and we ended up bidding almost $3 million Hull's evangelism for reviving, rather than replacing, old windows started decades ago. "Window compa- nies were notorious for going through historic neighborhoods and convincing people that new windows were better," he says. "So you have all these beau- tiful old houses with new windows that completely changed the character of the house." They also don't last. Machine-made of flimsy materials like fast-growing plantation pine and aluminum, even expensive new win- dows will rot or fail after 10 years, he says. Compare that to windows made pre-1950, when windows were made by hand of solid, old-growth wood like mahogany that never rots. "Old windows have a lifespan of 100 years or more, so it makes more sense to restore them than to rip them out," he says. Where it's not possible to restore a window, the company also builds new ones from long-lasting woods using historic standards, including double-hung windows with pulleys and sash weights. Hull Millwork's website lists the up- coming fall schedule of window work- shops, along with educational videos on window restoration and other top- ics. "There's so much misinformation and lack of expertise out there that we are trying to teach and train as many people as we can," he says. Brent Hull Antique and vintage windows undergoing restoration Antique architectural elements inside Hull's offices 72