ᐅ Design of the Exterior Facade

Hello everyone,

We are almost finished with our planning (the floor plan is set), and now we are moving on to the "details."

Our house measures 8.84 x 10.64 m (29 x 35 ft) with a gable roof (30°) and has a knee wall height of 1.80 m (6 ft). The total height of the house (up to the top of the roof covering) is 2.53 m (8 ft 4 in). Because of the high knee wall, the house looks a bit "bare" at the eaves on the sides.

Our prefab house manufacturer suggested adding ribbon windows upstairs. However, these would only be about 44 cm (17 inches) above the floor on the upper floor. I could live with that (especially since these would be fitted with blinds), but on the plans, they look a bit... "fragile" (as we say in our region 😉).

My parents have a single-family house with the same knee wall height, but their upstairs is clad with slate tiles and the ground floor has yellow brick, so the walls are visually divided.

Now I’m thinking that maybe we could paint the ground floor or the upper floor in different colors to achieve a similar visual separation.

We don’t really need those ribbon windows for lighting in the rooms, but they do take up some wall space, and I’m not sure if I’d be happy with that.

Could you please share your thoughts on this?

Thank you very much,
Julia

Basically, I like the recessed clerestory windows, also from the inside, because they look creative. Additionally, you can create seating areas on the floor and still have a view outside.
I would have liked to have two as well, but the floor plan has now been changed, so (as you already mentioned) usable space is lost. Another downside would be cleaning. At that height, the windows probably cannot be opened. I once spoke with residents of a prefab home builder I favor (they often build these "hatches"), and they saw this as a drawback. The children often press their hands against the glass from the inside, and cleaning has to be done from the outside using a ladder.
In your case, I don’t really see the windows as continuous bands. If anything, I would make them at least as wide as the patio doors. But then you would lose even more usable space.

Plaster with an accent color always looks somewhat cheap, in my opinion. 🙁

How about a horizontal wood cladding in this area, which could be painted or stained?

Hello ypg,

thank you very much for your reply.

The "strip windows" (yes, I also find them a bit small) can probably be tilted open from the inside, and for cleaning, they can be removed by levering them out. Cleaning would be the lesser issue.

I would also find them nicer if they were bigger, but then I wouldn’t have any space left for furniture (room length is 4.90 meters (16 feet), so if 2 meters (6.5 feet) are already taken up by the window, it gets tight).

Wood cladding would have been my first idea too. But that would probably be more expensive, right? I might have to ask our prefab house company again...
I’m afraid of the worst though (especially since we are already slightly over budget 🙁)

Jaydee, we have about 15 sqm (161 sq ft) of horizontal battens on our house for accents (spread over 2 areas). It costs around (let me not lie) 1800. But the windows also cost something... you can offset that 😉

That doesn’t sound like much at first, but I think I would need about 85 sqm (roughly 900 sq ft). That would mean an additional cost of €10,000 for the entire upper floor (first floor).

Maybe some costs could be saved by doing it yourself, but honestly, I would have trouble working at 5 meters (16 feet) high (terrible fear of heights).

Well, first I’ll see what my husband thinks about it.

Why bother with the entire upper floor? It should be enough to clad the long sides about 1 meter (3 feet) up, say at a height of around 3 meters (10 feet) or so. You could try sketching it out.