I am on a mission to update my house. During my down time while I was recuperating from my shattered wrist, I did a lot of pacing the floors. As I walked from room to room, I came up with a long list of things that I want to do to freshen up our home of 16 years.
The Start of my Redecorating
The first item to tackle on my list were our window grids and we have a lot of them! When we first moved in, I had plantation shutters installed on the front of the house and immediately removed the grids.
I liked the clean lines of the shutters and didn’t want the additional lines of the window grids competing as in the sample picture below. It was an easy decision!
Below is a picture of my shutters. Clean, simple lines.
I left the grids in the rest of the house and enjoyed the look. We have a great room with walls of windows and its our favorite room in the house. For years we didn’t even have curtains. I felt we didn’t need them and loved the view.
The curtains were actually installed for my husband! He complained that he couldn’t enjoy watching a football game on a Saturday afternoon because of the glare from all the windows. Hence the drapes in the picture below.
Removing the Window Grids, Phase I
Our great room is where we have the most windows and where we felts we would have the most dramatic change. This past week we decided to remove some grids for a more contemporary look and to open up our view. This wasn’t an easy decision. It was like walking into cold water. We first stuck our foot in, removing just the top grids.
By removing the sunburst grids, it really gave the room a whole new look. We loved the open view without them. Some windows have the grids between the glass but ours were removable and easily snap into the window frame.
Removing the Window Grids, Phase II
After about a week, we decided to remove the next set of grids. I kind of liked it .. more openness, a better view, yet still some coziness of the grids.
After removing these two sets of grids, I started doing some research and saw that the correct way to partially remove the grids is to only have the grids on the upper section of the double hung windows (not the arch portion). Here’s a sample picture of a house with partial grids.
Personally, that makes no sense to me as I want the clear view at eye level! I don’t mind the look but I was going for the clear view, sans the grids. We decided to go all the way and remove them all!
Removing the Window Grids, Phase III
At first it seemed a bit naked with all of the grids removed but what we did love was the clear unobstructed view! It felt less closed in and a bit more modern.
Although I still love window grids, we felt this was a nice change and it cost us nothing! We saved all the grids in our basement and can add them back in the future, but for now, we are enjoying our new clear view. I’m especially looking forward to the colorful leaves this fall.
What are your thoughts? Yay or nay on the window grids? I’d love your opinion.
We removed out grids years ago and love it, and when we replaced the windows in the kitchen, we put solid glass and what a difference that made, it didn’t obstruct the view at all. We were going to do the same in the great room, but because of the fire requirements, you must have another exit out of the room, so we had to have double hung (no grids).
I like the no grid look, much newer look and not so traditional.
Thanks Aunt Elinor! We can’t get over how much bigger our rooms look and so open! Love the new look. On to my next project, new carpet and painting!
xoxo
Elaine
This looks great!! How did you go about removing the grids without damaging the window?
Nic – Our windows had removable grids. They snap in. I was thrilled we were able to remove them.
We are preparing to replace all of the cheap, contractor grade windows in our home. We have two windows in the front with the same configuration as your great room. While I generally like the no-grid, open look, I feel like the traditional style of our house requires something. We’ve decided to go with some level of grid on the front only. I do love the look of no grid on the circle top, but with grid or a partial on the bottom (your phase 1 and 2). I wish I could see what it would look like with the partial on the top.
The look in your great room is wonderful! Thank you so much for sharing – this post has been a huge help.