Bespoke Timber Windows – What are the choices?

All our products are bespoke, so they fit exactly into your openings and you can choose many styling aspects to suit exactly what you have in mind. There are sadly some real-world limitations, but we truly believe we can offer the perfect product for any style of home.

There are two common questions we receive from customers:

• What are your standard sizes?
• What styles do you offer?

The most accurate, yet least useful answer to both of these is “all of them”. As a result, we offer a free design service. We can quote a few style options that we believe will suit the home. From those, we will talk through the design with you to craft the perfect solution. To book our free design service contact us on sales@enlightenedwindows.co.uk.

All of our products are bespoke: we don’t hold any physical stock, all units are made-to-measure – so that they fit perfectly in your openings – and many styling aspects can be chosen to suit exactly what you have in mind. There are sadly some real-world limitations, but we truly believe we can offer the perfect product for any style of home.

Modern or Traditional

This is one of the very first questions we ask. It allows us to understand the general feel of what the customer is looking to achieve. As well as, immediately narrowing down the sort of window designs we should be discussing.

The majority of traditional projects are aiming to blend in with the surrounding area , so it’s important to look at the houses nearby. However, modern projects tend to sway towards contemporary, clean and simplistic configurations with minimal fuss.

See more in our Oxfordshire High Performance Renovation gallery.

Handles

strong> All our products have a standard set of handles that the manufacturer has specifically chosen to fit with their system. However, we do understand that everyone’s taste differs. To help find the best aesthetic solution for everyone, the majority of our manufacturers offer alternative colour options. Furthermore, if you have a very specific style in mind, feel free to send an image or a link to us at sales@enlightenedwindows.co.uk.

As long as a window handle has the correct screw spacing and spindle size, it will work with most of our windows. For doors, the general rule is that the handle must be of “rose” style (separate handle and lock). Again, the spindle size must be correct.

Also, customers can choose to not have handles on the exterior of doors that will never be accessed from the outside . For most doors positioned upstairs, this option cleans up the exterior appearance.

Glazing Bars, Georgian Bars, Astragal Bars

Purely on paper, adding bars that break up a pane of glass are not necessary. They are more expensive than most people anticipate and can block a surprising amount of light from entering the home. However, they do have their place in terms of adding a particular style and look to a window.

Thanks to the flexibility of bespoke windows, adding glazing bars can create beautiful lines running through a property. Either across an elevation or between floors; bars can help to soften the appearance of larger windows. The most popular bars we offer are around 25mm thick – this helps to minimise the amount of light that is blocked. In addition, we thoroughly recommend astragal bars. These offer much better energy-efficiency than bars that separate the glass into individual panes.

On timber windows especially, usually installed in older-style properties, they have these bars included in great quantity. Removing them can drastically alter the house’s appearance, and this can upset everyone from your neighbours to the local council. If you’re unsure on this aspect, it’s always best to ask sooner rather than later.

If you go onto your County Council’s website, you will find a planning enquiry form. This allows you to explain the changes you plan to make to your home. Then the council duty planning officer will inform you if you need planning permission or not. Contact us if you need help on where to find this information. We recommend carrying out this simple exercise to ensure you have full compliance with planning regulations; it is the home-owner’s responsibility and critical.

See more in our Cotswold Countryside Window Renovation gallery.

See more in our Window and Door Upgrades for a Home near Banbury gallery.

Bespoke Timber Window Layouts and Configurations

This is where things can start to get complicated. There are many rules of what we can and can’t create so we have different estimating systems for each factory we work with. However, we can give you a good idea of what is possible for bespoke timber windows.

If we were to take a simple square window – let’s say 800mm x 800mm. This window could be a fixed pane; hinged on either the left or right; hinged at the top or an inward opening tilt turn.

Then, you can arrange these hinge-types in the frame practically however you would like. There are only two real limits. Maximum and minimum manufacturing sizes and we can’t have both inward and outward opening hinges within the same frame.

Learn more about window opening options via our Configuration Options for Bespoke Windows page

Door Layouts and Configurations

For our bespoke timber doors, there is much more flexibility. You can split the most basic fully-glazed door into almost any number of sections , with some timber and others glazed.

Alternatively, our panelled doors can have grooved designs (both inside and outside) with the option of cutting out an area to be glazed. A vertically-grooved door with a small square section to look through is quite popular. For timber and aluminium-timber double doors, the same rules apply.

Beyond that, we can create our Lacuna bifold doors up to 6m wide with a range of glazed door designs in each leaf. We can position glazing bars within our sliding doors too.

Take a look through our Bespoke Doors Gallery to find something that

For further information, or interest in our free design service get in touch by emailing sales@enlightenedwindows.co.uk or use our alternative contact details below.

Danish windows

Lacuna Bi-fold