Bay Window Design Plans

There's always one homey area in your house where you feel your best. This cozy area adds the 'home' element to your house; there, you can spend hours sitting all by yourself, experiencing pleasure in solitude. This homey area can be your room, a staircase, a doorway, or a large window.

For me, it is the bay window of my room, which opens in my beautiful backyard garden. It allows prolific natural light in my room. It offers a comfortable window seat and a splendid view of the greenery around the house.

Sitting by the window, I spend hours gazing at the sky that changes colors and the tall green trees that scrape it. Lost in my thoughts, I sit counting the clouds that float across the sky, trying to derive meaning out of those shapeless masses of condensed moisture - clouds!

Bay windows are specifically designed to enhance the interiors of the house by allowing maximum natural light to enter. Usually, they are meant to highlight a particular view outside the house. Bay window designs are such that the window space projects outward from the main walls of the house.

This style of construction forms a bay in the house, where one can spend time relaxing or enjoying the splendid view that the bay window highlights. The bay can also be used as a reading area, a workspace or a display area.

Bay windows make the room appear larger and give it a spacious look. Mostly, they are designed in the shape of a polygon along the height of the room. In some cases, they form a box projecting outward from the house that can be used to place potted plants.

Bay window treatments are used to 'treat' them with a soothing appeal and also to filter or soften the prolific light they admit. Considering the size and structure of bay windows, designing and decorating them can be a bit challenging. But let's take the challenge and see if we can come up with some do-it-yourself bay window designs and treatments.

There are two basic styles in which bay windows are constructed. It is either in the form of a box that starts a little below head height or a full bay window in the form of a floor-to-ceiling polygon that creates a nook. The former bay window design is common in cheaper homes or in homes where building full bay windows is not feasible. The latter bay window design is an expensive option as it alters the floor plan of your room. But the magnificence of a full bay window design is worth the effort and expenditure.

Before you go about designing a bay window, measure the available window space. Along with the length and width of the window area, also measure the depth, which is the distance from the interior wall to the point your bay window will reach.

For the shape, material and color of the window, you have plenty of options to choose from. While you can go for a square-shaped, trapezoidal or a round window with rounded or hard front and back corners. Pick colors that blend well with the exteriors of your house.

Choose materials depending on your requirements of the construction and appearance of the bay window.

For example, if you live in an area prone to strong winds, you should have bay windows made of reinforced glass. You can opt for a reflective tint if the bay window faces the sun. Using wood for the bay window will give the room a warm and aesthetic appeal, aluminum will offer more durability to the windows, while PVC or fiberglass will give you a wide range of colors to choose from and make the windows maintenance-free.

Next is the bay window seat design. How can you forget to design that cozy seating which your bay window is going to provide you with? Start by measuring the space that will be used for the window seat. A comfortable chair and a small round table in one corner of the bay will create a nice little reading corner.

If the window seat stretches along the width of the bay window, you can include a storage section beneath the seat, in the form of cabinets or drawers. For a bay window in the kitchen, this small round table with two cozy chairs will serve as a breakfast nook. No window seat is complete without a window seat cushion.

As bay window seats are exposed to bright sunlight, you should choose a fade-resistant fabric for the cushions. Pick colors that match with the interiors of the room. Window cushions add an element of comfort to the bay window design and make it a part of your home decor.

The main purpose of window treatments is to ensure privacy, filter light and protect the room from heat and extreme cold. However, as aesthetics is an integral part of interior designing, window treatments are no more considered as mere window coverings. Besides protection, they are also meant for decoration and they come in different forms such as sheers, curtains, blinds, valances and many more.

For the coverings, you can choose anything from simple window blinds to heavy drapes. You can opt for simple shades or blinds if the windows are closely spaced. Curtains are a popular choice of bay window treatments for windows of all sizes.

However, you can choose to substitute them altogether with the use of valences or cornices to treat the windows. Make sure that the colors of the window treatments blend well with those of the room's interiors and that the treatments do not appear overbearing.

Using textured or etched glasses for the bay window or suspending stained glass panels proves to be a unique window treatment option. Base your choice of treatments on the bay window design and layout.

Shape: Circular, box type or polygonal
Size: Starting from a little above the floor level, starting from the floor level ending at a height below the ceiling or spanning the height of the wall

Material Used: Wood (for a cozy look, aluminum (for durability), reinforced glass (for strength), PVC or Fiberglass (you'll get a wide choice of colors)
Seating: A round table and chairs, cushioned chair or a small sofa (the seat can be combined with a cabinet below, providing additional storage space)

Treatments: Curtains (for a cozy look or for shielding the sun or winds, preferred for large windows), Blinds (in a formal setting or for filtering light, preferred for closely spaced windows), decorative glass panels (for an offbeat look)

Whatever your bay window design plans are, don't forget that they are bay windows! They are meant to frame the picturesque exteriors and welcome natural light into your room. They are meant to provide you with that cozy area where the poet in you can spend hours counting the countless clouds that spill on the infinite stretch of the sky.

Very rarely, something can awaken the poet in you and inspire you to 'count the countless'. A beautiful bay window design can do that!