Transitional cottage
our 1950’s weather board
Front of our house with dated awning and windows, a
s you can see we have a pigeon problem as well !
We bought a house in 2018.
I had no real emotional connection with the house at the first, second or even third viewing. In fact my husband seemed to be more keen on purchasing this 1950,s weather board than myself. He believed We could turn it into a lovely family home. We purchased the property at the end of 2017 and moved in at the end of March 2018.
As you can see this home didn’t really fit into any architectural style.
The old aluminium sliding windows had seen better days. The roof was faded and I couldn’t really define what style the home was meant to be. So with no design style as a guide I decided I would create my own. This old 1950’s whether board would be turned into a transitional cottage with a modern twist.
Figuring out a design style for your home helps narrow down choices for how the outside of your home will look as well as for the interiors later.
The fist thing I needed to do was to change out the front windows. The sliding old silver aluminium ones gave no character to the home and I wanted to replace them with windows that would give a nod to the cottage feel I wanted to create.
I remember walking down our street looking at some of the other houses to see if any particular window style leap out at me. There were a few houses that had lovely timber windows with little top lights (little squares in the top separated by bars) this style of window would be perfect for the front of our home.
We ended up with a three panel fixed window with top lights (as you can see in the pic). A fixed panel window is one that doesn’t open. Our budget was pretty tight so we chose fixed windows because they were less expensive and I did not really need them to open as both rooms had side windows that opened for ventilation.
The front of the house has a busy road so the noise factor meant we would probably never open them. To combat the noise a little more we had the windows made with toughened glass that also helps reduce noise.
We toyed with the idea of aluminium because they were easier with maintenance but in the end, timber won out . That cottage look and feel I was trying to create called for traditional timber style windows.
As you can see the windows have instantly added some character and charm to our little 1950’s cottage.
