Entry Doors - The Traditional Classic

Posted by: Ken Mariotti

Colonial - Homeguides.sfgate.com

What’s the right entry door for a traditional style house? It depends on which traditional style house you live in or plan to build. Traditional style means long established or customary and is the most common style in our area. Traditional is a broad term compromising many styles including Federal, Gothic Revival or Queen Anne.

When we describe a home as traditional we’re often referring to either a common style historically prevalent in our region, such as Colonial, Georgian or Cape Cod, or likewise, we may be referring to the specific classic features such as symmetrical windows, Greek shapes or a portico. What’s common to this type of home is that it has a timeless design with historical roots.

When shopping for an entry door for your traditional style home, it’s important to be clear about which style you’re trying to capture. Since most traditional home entries feature a decorative surround, focus on selecting a door to compliment and illuminate that feature of the home.

Balanced Symmetry

French Revival -Jefferybrianfisher.com

When planning a traditional front entry pay special attention to how you’ll create symmetry. Will you have plants, glass, lights, ornamental trim or some other artifact adorning either side of the entry door? The door needs to appear balanced with each element carefully placed and scaled to match the rest of your home’s exterior.

Six-panel - Pinterest

Solid Door

The most common traditional door style is made of wood with rail-and-stile construction with raised panels. Panels are quite suitable to Colonial, Federal, Cape Cod or Georgian styles. If you’re designing a French or Spanish Revival you’ll want to consider plank door styles, which elongates and simplifies the lines of the door. The tongue-and-groove look emulates plank doors, but usually is built using rail-and-stile to ensure greater performance. Victorian, Queen Anne or Ranch home styles often use a French or flat-slab door.

Transom and Sidelites

Victorian - Therma-Tru Doors

Bring light into the entry hall by adding a transom above or sidelites flanking the door. Glazing, the glass, should match your home’s windows. Let’s say that your grid pattern is a colonial style traditional. It’s likely six-panes of glass, separated by muntins in both the top and bottom window panels. Your transom would also have six-panes of glass with muntins and your sidelite divided glass panes would each match the size of one of the window panes. If you have Victorian style windows you can repeat the diamond-patterned grids.

Just because you have a traditional style home doesn’t mean your entry door is the same as every other traditional entry door. Using this traditional style guide you can create your own look from our manufacturer’s traditional style doors: Therma-Tru, Jeld-Wen, Simpson, Andersen, and Marvin.

Back to the Future – Traditional Old homes and Sustainable Remodeling

Posted by: Ken Mariotti

The building industry has transformed over the past decade because of new technologies and designs that make our homes more comfortable and more economical. Traditional homes valued for their quality craftsmanship or architectural significance can now undergo renovations to bring them up to modern building standards without compromising the beauty of the original home.

Remodel with Marvin Casements

The benefits of remodeling or building a new home using modern windows, skylights, doors, siding, sunrooms and other building products means you can create sustainable designs that enhance your life and support the environment.

Keep the vintage façade of your traditional home while upgrading everything else. Windows and doors are indisputably one of the most important elements to focus on in order to improve the efficiency of your home. Marvin Windows and other manufacturer’s can replicate the scale, proportion, profile, configuration, and appearance of the old windows in your traditional home.

Begin by focusing on insulation, draught proofing, ventilation, and the orientation of windows and doors, and you can create the efficiency of a modern home without loosing the beauty of a traditional home.

Insulation

Wood is still the best insulating material for window frames and with Argon gas filled double pane glass makes the biggest insulation impact. Today’s high-end windows such as Marvin and Andersen use warm-edge spacers and weather stripping materials to further insulate their products. Lastly, professional installers,like Woodland, install the windows using high-grade insulation, caulk and weather stripping, and their years of experience to ensure an airtight fit before they close up the space.

Transoms For Air Flow - Marvin Windows

Draught proofing

All windows are not created equal when it comes to draught proofing your home. Pay attention to good-quality detailing around the window, which includes the window design, the fit, and the quality of the installation. Another important consideration is how the windows operate because some operating types have lower air leakage rates than others. Consider how that north wind whistles through your old windows in the winter and replace those windows with awning windows that hinge at the top and open outward. Since the sash closes by pressing against the frame, they generally have lower air leakage rates than sliding windows do for example. Casements also have better leakage rates than double or single hung windows.

Ventilation

Operable vents are back. Remember your grandparent’s old home with the dusty louver windows? Natural ventilation is a key design principle of modern sustainable homes because; who can argue that the simplest form of ventilation is as simple as opening a window. Select from a wide assortment of awnings, hoppers, and other operable venting solutions that allow you to have a cross breeze through your home, while keeping out the elements. Worried about security by leaving windows open at night? The added benefit of the new louver and awning window solutions is that you can leave vents or high awnings open overnight to cool down your entire home during the hot summers.

Orientation of windows

Louver Windows are Back - Australian Home

Carefully planning the location of your windows to allow more natural light to flow in, while at the same time reducing intense heat gains, is the art and science of passive solar design methods. Don’t just replace your windows with new, but identical window sizes or locations. Rather, use this opportunity to make larger window openings on the north side of your home to let more light into dark areas and add a special low-e coating or laminated glass to a south-facing window to prevent overheating a room. Conversely, use your south facing windows to collect heat to warm your house in the winter. If you hear too much street noise, remodeling is the perfect time to select custom windows designed to dampen sound.

You can have the perfect house by remodeling with the new technologies and designs. Preserve the visible beauty of your traditional home while completely upgrading your windows, doors and other elements of your home with cutting-edge products and sustainable design practices. Love your old home and enjoy the conveniences of a new home.

Traditional Homes Mix With Modern Building Materials

Post by: Ken Mariotti

Source: dailyhomedecorideas.com

Some of the most beautiful neighborhoods around Chicago and its suburbs are the old tree lined streets of traditional homes. Famous for it’s historic architecture Chicago reflects the best of classic homes through the years. Prairie, craftsman, Victorian, farmhouse, brick row houses, limestone mansions – we’ve got it all. If you love the traditional styles that have defined our beautiful area, but want modern functionality – learn how you can mix traditional styles with modern products.

The benefits of remodeling or building a new home using modern windows, skylights, doors, siding, sunrooms and other building products are quite simple; ease of use, better performance, lower utility costs and less maintenance.

Ease of use and better performance

Today’s products are produced using new technologies that make life easier. For example, built in and auto controlled window treatments can be preset to open and close at optimal times. They are simple to use, while maximizing daylight and minimizing unwanted heat gain or loss. There are multi-point door locking systems that engage automatically when the door is closed.

Lower utility costs

Without argument, low E dual and triple pane insulated glass lowers costs over the length of owning your home. Other improvements like insulated oversized glass, gives you more natural daylight to keep your home warm and reduces your need for electric lighting. Modern skylights with special coatings and ventilation are now built in new forms that can direct light and control ventilation in a room.

Source: Velux

Less maintenance

Whether you purchase natural wood windows or synthetic vinyl windows, more than ever before, today’s finishes have a higher resiliency to weathering, mold or mildew. Modern windows tilt inward for easy cleaning and offer water spot resistant surfaces for skylights and hard to reach picture or awning windows.

Traditional exterior and transitional interior

One way to combine the desire for a traditional home with an equal desire to use modern materials is by blending classic style with a few contemporary elements. Keep the traditional exterior façade, while using more contemporary materials for the interior. For example you can choose that classic red brick Georgian exterior and add more windows and glass patio doors, rather than the traditional small and sparse windows. Select traditional brick moldings made of low maintenance composites or vinyl around the windows, rather than the higher maintenance wood choice.

Source: Marvin

The interior can be less traditional with an open floor plan that invites in more natural light. Create entire window walls without completely violating the traditional style of your home by using multiple French doors with glass transoms for a floor to ceiling light wall. Modern folding doors are an alternative if selected in dark hardwoods for a more traditional look. And replacing stationary transoms with remote controlled awnings will help ventilate your home creating cross breezes that will cut down on energy consumption.

You can enjoy the easy living that comes with an energy efficient and low maintenance home and have the everlasting beauty of a traditional home. Woodland offers a broad selection of styles for windows, doors, siding and sunrooms with state-of-the-art products from major manufacturers like Marvin, Andersen, Pella and Velux. Let us help you create a traditional look using modern materials.