How would you interpret ‘interlaced panes’ in the context?
The floors are made of the long, narrow hearts of trees brought down from mountain slopes, the chimneys are stones rolled round as biscuits in the Swannanoa River. The windows have interlaced panes like the ones in your father’s house, cracked here and there but holding. The mitered oak doorsills are like deep wooden picture frames, each holding a perfect view of the next room, where walls are touched with light, and life could be waiting. The grain of the wood tells a story of years in the mountains, all the rains and droughts leading to the beginning of my life, when these trees were felled. The house was built the same year as my birth.

How would you interpret ‘interlaced panes’ in the sentence: The windows have interlaced panes like the ones in your father’s house…?
Does it mean the glass of the widows had many cracks?
Thanks!

Question

How would you interpret ‘interlaced panes’ in the context?
The floors are made of the long, narrow hearts of trees brought down from mountain slopes, the chimneys are stones rolled round as biscuits in the Swannanoa River. The windows have interlaced panes like the ones in your father’s house, cracked here and there but holding. The mitered oak doorsills are like deep wooden picture frames, each holding a perfect view of the next room, where walls are touched with light, and life could be waiting. The grain of the wood tells a story of years in the mountains, all the rains and droughts leading to the beginning of my life, when these trees were felled. The house was built the same year as my birth.

How would you interpret ‘interlaced panes’ in the sentence: The windows have interlaced panes like the ones in your father’s house…?
Does it mean the glass of the widows had many cracks?
Thanks!

Answer

See the results of this Google images search.  https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&ei=K4BgVIafOaXLmwWj0oKQBg&q=interlaced+window+panes&oq=interlaced+window+panes&gs_l=mobile-gws-hp.12...7218.28457.0.29631.35.20.13.2.2.0.360.1805.17j2j0j1.20.0....0...1c.1.58.mobile-gws-hp..14.21.1398.0.-T-FgD6n1oo

Interlaced window panes can be very beautiful.  You can still see a lot of them at the old European-style houses in Shanghai.

Window panes of old churches are often interlaced.

Answer

This is an interesting question.  Let's see if we can explain a picture or a photo in words.

An interlaced window pane is one in which small pieces of glass, often differently coloured, are held together by an interwoven metal or wooden design.  Such window panes are often found in churches.  There was a great revival of interlaced window panes for residential decorations during the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods.

I wish to say to Gordon that in European countries, including Britain, awareness of architectural details is something that is valued among all classes of the population.  Schools teach it.  It is not something that is the exclusive preserve of aesthetes or art students.  A common labourer could be very interested in and knowledgeable interlaced window panes, just as a bus-driver could be a Shakespeare enthusiast.

This growing awareness of life being more than making a living and education being more than vocational training, and that culture and beauty are not the exclusive preserve of an elite, is of particular importance to our Chinese members as they live in a country in transformation.

One wishes to encourage, rather than discourage, curiosity and knowledge cultivation.

Answer

This may not be the answer you want to hear, but as a native speaker and an avid reader, I'll tell you a secret:

I NEVER pay attention when writers begin to describe buildings. I tend to skip those paragraphs because I find they are almost always irrelevant to the story.

But, to answer your question, 'interlaced panes' are typically windows that are made from smaller pieces of glass that are 'laced' together with some sort of substance that hardens to hold them in place. 'like your father's house' can mean, literally, like the windows in the person's father's house. However, it can also mean, "like common windows in houses".