Why divided light windows look better, the historic trick for scale and proportion.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ธ.ค. 2021
- A Master Builder explains the tricks for the best-looking windows on a home. First, you must understand why scale and proportion matter, then apply it to divided light windows. Windows matter, but divided light windows matter more. If you ever wondered why divided light windows look better than blank sheets, come watch this video as Brent explains the scale and proportion inherent in divided light windows.
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Brent Hull
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Seriously! My brain hurts from trying to figure out how it’s possible there aren’t more subscribers to this channel. Brent, you truly are awesome man!!
Thanks for comment, tell your friends. 😀 We are just finishing our first serious year on TH-cam, we are growing, steadily but surely. Hopefully it will continue to grow with time.
Well you guys are certainly doing a good job. Thank you very much for the content!!!
Because it's very high quality. Things such as this stand out as high quality because in this day and age it's few and far between.
So it's usually the case more often than not that something of very high quality will be rare and stand alone and hardly noticed because it doesn't come with the hype train that poor quality things come with.
This comes up in photography as well. The vertical rectangles feel more human and the landscape rectangles feel more natural because we see a wider space than we do horizontal, but when looking at people we naturally look up and down to take in the whole person.
Interesting! Thanks for sharing.
Brent, these videos are incredible! I'm a very amateur builder but enjoy these videos so much. It's helped open up my eyes to all the incredibly important details of what goes into a truly authentic home. It's also helped my photography career, especially when I'm doing work with interior designers/builders! Learning more about period correct building and finishings and the incredible craftsmanship that goes into such work has been a treat. I can't get enough!
Great to hear! Thanks for the feedback. Let me know if there are other things you would like to see.
Just found you Brent. I’m hooked! Keep the content coming!
Cool, thanks for watching!!
What an absolute treasure of a video for those of us trying to figure this stuff out. I want to build a shop on my property I have a 1925 home. After watching your video on reclaim stores I went to one. I found a set of three windows with jamb and everything for $20! But i now realize they are older that my house because the sash windows are horizontal. Probably from the 40's.
Good luck, I think salvage is a huge opportunity.
Awesome. I enjoy listening to these videos and then walking through some of my favorite neighborhoods and having something fresh to think about as I look.
These videos also make me think about all the butchering I’ve been a part of over the years.😩
Glad you like them! We learn more from our mistakes, I've made plenty. Thanks for watching.
Love getting your take on details
So glad it helps. Thanks for watching.
Great explanation. I really enjoy these videos and they are the perfect length.
Awesome, thank you! I appreciate the feedback.
More great content. Thank you!
You bet!
I am always looking for books that refers to vertical and horizontal differences in windows and why vertical patterns are much more pleasant.
Thanks a lot for your insights and explanations on the subject.
I am a big fan of your work, because repeatedly you helped to really understand how to build better and beautifully!
Thanks for your comments, I'm glad the videos are helping.
Very helpful video
Glad to hear that, thanks for watching.
Never could figure out why Brett Waterman was so twitterpated over original windows. I get it now! Thank you!
Great, I'm glad it helped.
Gold. Thanks
Welcome! Thanks for watching.
There is a building I ride by on my way home every night.
I'll give out the address as I think it's now commercial. ( just checked MGM's lobbying spot at last note. )
501 C St NE D.C.
Completely in love with it's symmetry and simplicity yet grandness.
To me it would be a perfect upscale home for a traditionally sized family.
Built in 1890 and last sold for almost $4m. God only knows what it would go for today.
The plethora of windows are what draw my eye to it.
The small apt. bldg I live in has great window spacing ( b.1937 ).
That is a wonderful Italianate Victorian. It is lovely. Thanks for sharing.
Terrific stuff, right? I love your work. Thanks,
Glad you enjoy it! Thanks for watching.
The example of the letterbox and its house are, with sincere respect for and apologies to the owner, quite hilarious. Everything you say, Brent, is paralleled in a fine art college degree in which nothing of the Great Masters’ techniques and the Golden Ratio, etc, are ever even mentioned. It is all about abstract expression in preparation for unemployment.
Well said! Thanks for watching.
Thanks
Welcome
I’m gathering ideas to remodel my very well-built 1965 two-story brick house. I really enjoy your videos Brent, I’m just not sure where to go or how to get started. I like it when I see it but I don’t know how to find it. I hope that makes sense. Thumbs up
Totally get it. My house was built in '62. It's tough to apply classical principals to my house. Ithink the best is just a one thing at a time approach. First windows, then one by one work through the issues. I'm happy to give you my 2 cents if you want to send pics to info@brenthull.com. Thanks.
@@BrentHull thank you!
Would love a review of dormers. I’ve seen some that don’t fit at all in terms of perhaps scale or proportion.
Have you watched my video on Dormers? Check it out, I'd love your feedback.
@@BrentHull Sorry, didn't search but will watch. The farmhouse we are updating needs more light upstairs, but I don't see how to add windows or dormers without a problem with the issues you mentioned in this video.
That’s a particularly thought-provoking video for me. I can’t disagree about the jarring of the mind when one sees large panes in an old house. Equally, I suppose it might be small panes in a modern house. But why? We know that, until relatively recently, there was not the technology to make large panes of glass. The earliest use of glass (I’m going to bypass the Romans) was in the 16th century in the UK. Typically, it started with the rich and worked its way down the richness scale. If I look at Tudor windows, be it Hever Castle, Leeds Castle, Ightham Moate, the panes are quite small (maximum of 6”?) and placed in the windows which are, themselves, quite small. The panes are set either square or, for added value, in diamond shape in lead calms which makes up the window. Small panes (can’t make bigger) in small windows (can’t have too many lead squares as they are not strong). I think we can assume that, if they had the means to make large panes, the Tudors would have loved to use them as a further sign of their wealth.
But, for several decades, we can produce huge sheets of glass (my barn conversion has double glazed units set into the roof 14’ x 3’) but, even now, when we don’t have to have small panes, older houses look strange if they are replaced by a single large plane.
Why is this? Is it because we, as humans, almost have a memory of that type of house must have that type of window? Is it the scale of other features that makes large panes seem out of place?
For many years, you have been able to change a large single pane window into an apparent collection of small panes; you can have this by opting for windows which have “lead calme” inserted in the void of the double glazed unit; doing nothing except aesthetic. You can retro-fit “lead calme” onto the surface of that large pane and I have seen those, when the glass has been painted with acrylic paint as faux-stained, looking quite attractive. Either way, these faux multi-pained window add, to me, a sense of heritage and a sense of detail.
I hope that I am explaining my dilemma correctly. It’s not that I disagree at all with Brent but I wonder what makes us think the way that we do. Is it truly just aesthetic or is it a combination of what we have learned to be appropriate and what is aesthetically pleasing?
Thanks as always for your thoughts and comments. I personally think the reason it looks wrong is because in everything we view, we try to place ourselves there to gauge if it is safe or not. Flight or fight actions in the brain are always working. As part of this action, we need to understand scale, how big is the object compared to me. We become accustomed to a certain size, but when that scale is thrown off, or confused we don't like or feel safe. The smaller panes give us a scale that makes us feel safe. My 2 cents.
This was great, if only all builders and new construction investors and developers would watch and pay attention to your content. I feel that the trend of black windows, particularly on bright white house (I.e. “modern farmhouse”), is just as bad as non divided light windows. This awful (in my opinion 😊) trend makes the house look like it had its teeth knocked out in a bar brawl.
Haha, I agree. Thanks.
Can u make a video on Venetian sash window?
Of course, what are you interested in, the history or how to make them? Thanks
@@BrentHull history as well as their making process. I want to make that for my bedroom window. My brother will make it. I need your help, please make video on that. Thanks 👍❤️
@@BrentHull I have seen jim sear videos on venetion sash window, but need some more info. I really like the videos on history. thanks
What about grids between panes of glass? Okay or a no?
That is a simulated divided light vs. a true divided light. Simulated ligtes became popular in the 80's and 90's. They don't have much historic precedent. My 2 cents. Thx.
I agree. I don't like any sort of fake detail like that. But you can't buy any true divided light windows now? From the typical manufacturers-Anderson, Milgard, and so on? Would you agree its better to have no grids than fake ones?@@BrentHull
I'm working on a window scale for desert modern. It's killing me, you need more stand alone penetrations. Big glass is tough. over 4x4 -5x5' scale is where you have to start doing floor to ceiling and sliding doors. Basically throwing your hand up and giving up.
Yes, that is a challenge. Good luck, my quick suggestion is to not do squares but rather rectangles that promote and enhance the lines of the home. my 2 cents.
Solar panels over windows? Never heard of that before. Is it a translucent solar glass?
I think they were dark sheets of plexiglass. They have been on there for at least 20 years. Crazy.
Cheaper than the 80k high pressure AC in the plaster walls. It's kind of painful to see someone in a great home that's just not that into houses. I told a homeowner about an area that needed some tuck pointing on a great 8-10,000sf 1914 house. And recommended a mason, he said "What?! I can get up there with a caulk gun this weekend and no one will be able to tell the difference". I literally felt like I had been punched. He was a great guy and a great customer but that was tough. The next owner came in and saved it. It would have taken 3-40 years before his attitude would have damaged the house though, it was so solid.
Can not stand it when divided windows are replaced with single pane windows in historic houses. Its always so jarring
Couldn't agree more. It's often shocking.
You’re talking about proportional scales and why you like a room, but @1:49 you show a room with the chair rail at door knob height which is typically approximately 36 inches… But on the other hand you continually say “The chair rail is never 36 inches”… so what is going on here… is this room original?
This is the same house you commented about in another video. The architect has chair rails in 2 rooms and both are set too high. It is a curious issue, one of my few disappointments. It is STILL my recommendation to NOT set it at 36" and I can back that up with tons of good data. Thanks again.
@@BrentHull oh… ok, my bad… I didn’t pick up that it was the same house…
- I am loving your videos by the way… I am learning a lot
@@BrentHull yeah that chair rail in larger houses has to go, anything over a 9' ceiling and the proportion gets all Alice in wonderland. You feel for the owner because you know 36 months before there was a meeting where they said we like chair rail in the first design meeting. Never addressed once the design is done. And the entry next to the dining room has a 13' ceiling and the dining room has an 11 or 12'.