Thursday, August 27, 2009
So you want a view ....
One of the big advantages of living in the Puget Sound area is the fact that just outside your door and around the corner there is a spirit-lifting view of the surrounding environment. You don't have to live on a bluff to have this experience either -- just open up the walls of your home to let the light and the view in.
Opening up the walls of your home, or even adding to your house with a light-filled addition, can do a lot for your attitude and improve the value of your house. We are light starved here in the Northwest, with our gray, winter light and short days. Natural light becomes very important!
You can open up to this light by utilizing windows or glass doors to: 1) maximize the view of the mountains, sound, lake, city, and weather; 2) provide a special view into your garden and let the changing seasons, views and colors in; 3) make your home or room feel larger by breaking down the barrier of enclosures formed by walls/roof/floors or even neighbors; 4) bring the outside in -- in the Northwest Tradition.
It's obvious to open up if you have a view right outside, perhaps adding a deck or an addition or even another story. Just be aware that with western-facing windows, your home can overheat uncomfortably with summer's afternoon solar gain, and furnishings can fade due to ultraviolet light exposure. You can ameliorate these problems with overhangs, trellises, and with solar shading screens.
It's not so obvious when you don't have that mega-view outside or when your neighbor is right next to you. If you have a garden you love, or are thinking of one, or there's a special focal tree outside, you can open up to let this view, this always-changing bit of nature, into your home. And if you frame that bit of nature just right, you have just added an "outside room" to your home, with its particular light and spaciousness and colors. When adding windows, try to have light coming from more than one direction, for balance, and to reduce glare.
Even a basement room can benefit from opening up. A large window-well can provide an expansive feel in what could be an otherwise claustrophobic room. Then perhaps, put some plantings or artwork or a garden in that window well, so there's some color and something to look at. Or, in cases when you're squeezed in between neighbors, and that part of your home is too dark, put some windows in and screen off your neighbor with plantings such as fast growing, well-contained bamboo. You'll now have filtered or dappled light coming in and pleasant greenery you can look out at.
Windows can make your home or room feel larger besides simply capturing a view. Large windows with low sills and with high head heights or flanking pairs of corner windows provide for a much more expansive feeling -- a "sweeping view" outside. They 'dematerialize' the wall and bring the outside in. This can be wonderful! However, the Northwest winters are abundant with cold, gray light that may not be all that comfortable, unless it's offset with carefully chosen interior furnishings, textures, and colors.
Besides letting the outside in, with the light and the views, windows and doors are an important part of the 'vocabulary' of your home. You can update an older home in function, appearance, and quality of light with new banks of windows. Windows define the look and style of your house. A newer home might have larger expanses of glass, where an older home may have windows divided up by mullions. So give consideration to what they look like alongside the other windows of your home -- from both the inside and outside. Think about the scale of things... For new homes, window sizes and patterns say much about the home's esthetic. Simply adding or placing windows without consideration of their effect of the facade of your home can be disastrous! (See www.ctabuilds.com/queenanne.html) to view a new "old" home as defined by windows, traditional on street side, contemporary on view side).
The best way to see how windows look on your home is to draw a picture of your house with all the new and old windows on it. You can simplify this process by sketching over an enlarged photograph or Xerox of the house or utilizing computer programs that let you draw over. Draw as much detail as you can and then stand back to look at the whole wall!
So, go ahead -- capture that view whether it's far away or close up. Bring some nature into your home along with that often needed light, and you will feel better for it!
Opening up the walls of your home, or even adding to your house with a light-filled addition, can do a lot for your attitude and improve the value of your house. We are light starved here in the Northwest, with our gray, winter light and short days. Natural light becomes very important!
You can open up to this light by utilizing windows or glass doors to: 1) maximize the view of the mountains, sound, lake, city, and weather; 2) provide a special view into your garden and let the changing seasons, views and colors in; 3) make your home or room feel larger by breaking down the barrier of enclosures formed by walls/roof/floors or even neighbors; 4) bring the outside in -- in the Northwest Tradition.
It's obvious to open up if you have a view right outside, perhaps adding a deck or an addition or even another story. Just be aware that with western-facing windows, your home can overheat uncomfortably with summer's afternoon solar gain, and furnishings can fade due to ultraviolet light exposure. You can ameliorate these problems with overhangs, trellises, and with solar shading screens.
It's not so obvious when you don't have that mega-view outside or when your neighbor is right next to you. If you have a garden you love, or are thinking of one, or there's a special focal tree outside, you can open up to let this view, this always-changing bit of nature, into your home. And if you frame that bit of nature just right, you have just added an "outside room" to your home, with its particular light and spaciousness and colors. When adding windows, try to have light coming from more than one direction, for balance, and to reduce glare.
Even a basement room can benefit from opening up. A large window-well can provide an expansive feel in what could be an otherwise claustrophobic room. Then perhaps, put some plantings or artwork or a garden in that window well, so there's some color and something to look at. Or, in cases when you're squeezed in between neighbors, and that part of your home is too dark, put some windows in and screen off your neighbor with plantings such as fast growing, well-contained bamboo. You'll now have filtered or dappled light coming in and pleasant greenery you can look out at.
Windows can make your home or room feel larger besides simply capturing a view. Large windows with low sills and with high head heights or flanking pairs of corner windows provide for a much more expansive feeling -- a "sweeping view" outside. They 'dematerialize' the wall and bring the outside in. This can be wonderful! However, the Northwest winters are abundant with cold, gray light that may not be all that comfortable, unless it's offset with carefully chosen interior furnishings, textures, and colors.
Besides letting the outside in, with the light and the views, windows and doors are an important part of the 'vocabulary' of your home. You can update an older home in function, appearance, and quality of light with new banks of windows. Windows define the look and style of your house. A newer home might have larger expanses of glass, where an older home may have windows divided up by mullions. So give consideration to what they look like alongside the other windows of your home -- from both the inside and outside. Think about the scale of things... For new homes, window sizes and patterns say much about the home's esthetic. Simply adding or placing windows without consideration of their effect of the facade of your home can be disastrous! (See www.ctabuilds.com/queenanne.html) to view a new "old" home as defined by windows, traditional on street side, contemporary on view side).
The best way to see how windows look on your home is to draw a picture of your house with all the new and old windows on it. You can simplify this process by sketching over an enlarged photograph or Xerox of the house or utilizing computer programs that let you draw over. Draw as much detail as you can and then stand back to look at the whole wall!
So, go ahead -- capture that view whether it's far away or close up. Bring some nature into your home along with that often needed light, and you will feel better for it!
Labels: architecture and design, remodeling and building
