Blind dormers

[Gene]

What techniques do you use when doing a blind dormer, one with no windows? I have a hipped roof dormer in mind for a walk in closet, as the only way to get the space, and to do a window on any of the three walls, would rob the closet of valuable storage space. We will bring in light via a skylight.

This dormer is on a narrow house, with tight spaces between the side elevations and the neighbor houses. Houses along the road are tightly packed, have modest streetside elevations, large view window and porch elevations at the rear facing the lake, and little on the sides.

Siding and style is sort of New England shingle.

And how in the world do you post a .jpg image from your own computer files on this site? I cannot get anything to work.

[csintexas]

you have to use an image host like photobucket

it is fairly common to have a window in a closet now a days and just put the closet rod across it or you could do some sort of decoration where the window would go or do a fake window with shutters, etc.. I have seen all these done so it just depends.

[SDR]

I see nothing wrong with a shingled dormer without a window. This would be the most honest solution, and the least fussy (and expensive).

If this is not acceptable for any reason, then a blank opening, trimmed and detailed just like a window but with plywood (or shingles) in place of the sash, would be appropriate. It could even have sash with muntins, if this matches the rest of the house -- the appearance would be of glass painted white.

The history of architecture is full of examples of "blind" windows, made to continue the rhythm of the design or to balance other openings. In masonry, the frame is typically filled with a blank surface of the same stone or brick as the body of the building; in wood the panel is often painted the trim color. (Perhaps a builder without an architectural education would have missed this ?)

SDR

[birgco]

[SDR]

Taking you seriously, in what way would a lack of building experience have "blinded" a designer to these options ? Almost anything is physically possible; the question was "what would look right and be taken as a correct solution" -- for which, as usual, we have history as a guide -- unless I am (once again) mistaken.


SDR

[birgco]

[SDR]

That's cool. I like wordplay too !

(I'm afraid I'm the one who gave into temptation, actually. . .)

I went looking for examples of blind openings to photograph, but the local Beaux Arts civic buildings (where I expected to find such) disappointed me.

I spent 37 years on the East Coast, fifteen of them in New England, and I'm sure I saw unfenestrated dormers there. Many a steeply-pitched roof had full dormers enabling the second story of a home to have flat ceilings. At least a few of those had closets and/or stairs without windows, I know. . .

SDR