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Although they’re far from being the most prominent part of your home, windows have a huge impact on your home’s overall visual style. While you will never go wrong with conventional options like double hung, casement, bay and bow, and sliding windows, you may be looking for something else – something that would truly bring out your home’s unique look and feel, something special. This is where specialty windows come in.
Specialty windows are windows that feature custom-made frames. As such, they don’t always follow standard measurements, and are often used in areas of the home where regular windows don’t work. Specialty windows function just like conventional window options, but a big part of their value comes from the way they look. Because they are available in all shapes or sizes, they work in more than a handful of ways to complement what your home looks like.
Specialty windows with curved arches or circular frames have a softer effect on your home, giving your property a more “organic” or “natural” feel to it. If you’re looking to give your home the appearance of height, opting for a taller arched specialty window will do the trick. On the other hand, specialty windows that feature plenty of lines and angles make a window look more dynamic, imparting the same effect on your home.
Some of the curved and arched specialty window styles available to you include chord, circle, circle top, equal leg arch, springline, quarter circle, unequal leg arch, and unequal springline, while angled styles include the triangle, trapezoid, peak pentagon, and octagon. These styles form the basic shapes that specialty windows can follow but they can be further tweaked to meet whatever design preference you might have.
Whether it’s a small window designed to complement other windows in your home or something big enough to be the centerpiece for one of your walls, there’s a specialty window for your home. Get to know your options and you’ll be zeroing in on the right specialty window for you in no time.
Even the best-looking specialty windows can look dull or tacky on a home with the wrong color options. To help make sure that you make the most out of getting specialty windows, you have to make sure that you’re getting them in the right color. Generally, choosing window trims that complement your home will put you in the right direction. More specifically, take note of these tips to help you choose the right colors for your specialty windows:
Brightly colored windows tend to “radiate” outward, making them look bigger than they are. While making your windows appear larger than they are can be beneficial, you have to be careful of making your home’s exterior look too cramped. To achieve balance, opting bright colors for smaller specialty windows will be your best bet.
Colors in the yellow or orange range, and lighter shades of brown are considered “warm colors.” Stimulating but soothing to the eye, warm-colored specialty windows work best in properties with a rustic vibe or following a more traditional home style.
Cool colors appear to recede away so choose them for trims on specialty windows installed in smaller rooms to help create a feeling of space in the interior. If yellows and oranges are warm, greens and blues are cool colors. Specialty windows in cool-colored trims are great for homes with a more neutral tone.
While white is a cool color and black is a warm one, their ability to go well with almost any other color makes them worth classifying into a different category. Having a lot of white can make interiors or exteriors appear cold so you’ll need warmer elements to strike balance. On the other hand, black instantly warms so it should be used sparingly so it doesn’t overwhelm.
Neutral colors range from beiges to browns. They are rarely exciting on their own, even on specialty windows, but combined with other elements in your home, like right-colored siding, neutrals can look put-together and sophisticated are usually different shades of brown or gray, and do not lean towards being warm or cool as colors.
Specialty windows are already special on their own but choose the right color and you can amplify their positive effect on your home even more.
Specialty windows may be most striking because of their shape and size but window glass is also a big consideration if you want to make the most out of the window style because it takes up a big portion of the window. To take full advantage of form and function, make sure you look for specialty windows with:
Single-pane windows used to be the standard but that all changed as demand for energy efficiency grew. As being energy-efficient meant improving insulation in the home, boosting insulative properties in window glass became a focus, resulting in double-pane windows.
As its name implies, double-pane windows have two panes of glass. Having two layers of glass allows a window to stunt the transfer of heat, keeping indoor heat in and outdoor heat out, but this function is improved with the use of gas fills. Argon or xenon are better insulators than regular air so heat transfer is better kept at bay when gas fills are in place.
Low-emissivity, or low-E, coating works by filtering out heat from sunlight without impeding levels of natural light let in. This means a specialty window fitted with low-E glass prevents too much heat from being absorbed into the home and making it difficult to normalize indoor temperature while supporting daylighting efforts. This not only ensures your comfort inside your home but also helps you cut back on energy use by keeping your HVAC system from working doubly hard and reducing your dependence on artificial light during the day. UV light is also blocked out by low-E glass so it also helps protect your furniture from fading.
Low-E coating may be applied on any of the four surfaces of a specialty window: the exterior side, the two sides facing each other within the insulated space, and the interior or room side. Typically, however, it is applied on one of the two sides within the insulated space for best results.
Specialty windows have a lot to offer but to make the most out of getting one, you have to be mindful of the design, color, and glass option it will have. It’s always a good thing to know about windows yourself but you can always turn to a professional should you require assistance. To learn more about specialty windows, don’t hesitate to talk to your local window expert today.