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How high are the tops of your windows with 9' ceiling?

14 years ago

How much space do others with 9' ceilings have above their windows in living rooms, dining rooms, etc? Is 2' too much?

We're planning our build with 9' ceilings in the first floor. Our plans show window header height at 7'0". There will be a lot of windows in the rear of the house, and we wanted aa transom over the patio door and the adjacent windows (1' transom). That puts the top of our windows around 7'9", and we plan to change the plans to match that height with the other windows in the rear only. What if we keep the front windows at 7'0"? With the layout, there aren't any rooms that are continuous where you would see the height difference from inside. We are not putting transoms on the other windows (just the breakfast area with patio doors and 2 windows). I'm not concerned about it being different, but whether 2' above the windows is too much or if it looks better that way.

Featured Answer

megradek

14 years ago

We did 8' doors and case openings and 6' windows on the first floor. To avoid a 'racing stripe' of paint after the trim was applied to them, we made an extention of the trim to the ceiling by using a 1x to meet the crown.

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Comments (8)

booboo60
14 years ago
The tops of our windows are ALL 81 1/2" from the floor. Our windows are mostly 34 1/2"W X 70 1/2"H. We have low sills but our space from the top of the windows is about 27". I don't think 2' would be too much at all. I will include a picture; sorry it is not a very good one but shows the windows and ceiling.

Here is a link that might be useful: windows
srercrcr
14 years ago
Living is 26 at top, 12 at bottom. Dining/breakfast off kitchen is 26 at top, 24 at bottom.Works for me.
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I'm going through the same thing right now. In my humble opinion, with 9' ceilings and 6' 8" doors you do not want to line the windows up with the doors. No older home designed by a real craftsman ever did that. The windows were always higher. I've been in many older houses with high ceiling and the windows are always higher than the doors and it looks great. I was also just recently in a newer build McMansion type house with 9' ceiling and the windows were all at 6'8". This was the first time I had ever actually seen this in person and it made this conclusion very clear to me; it looked terrible. The windows looked too low. It looked cheap and awkward. It looked like a mistake. From what I've seen, the minimun you want to go is 90". That gives you 18" top and bottom for 6' windows. I don't think you ever want there to be more space on top than on the bottom with a window. With doors it doesn't matter because they obviously always go right down to the floor. I think anywhere between 90 and 96 looks good. I'm personally trying now to decide between 90, 92 and 96.
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Go to a thrift shop and look for an attractive long, skinny leaning mirror, which will reflect light from your window and visually expand the room that way. Going by suggestions made in your other post, you hopefully will have gotten new bedding, moved the art lower, so that a mirror will reflect those updates. Also consider a swag lamp with white cord hanging over the bed--something cloudlike from Ikea like this to take advantage of your tall ceiling but bring it down a bit. This is the small Krusnig lampshade $13. Oops, sorry it won't link. You can find it here: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00259914/ Consider a skyscape poster for over the bed to bring the outside inside and draw attention to the height of the room. If you're allowed to paint, paint the ceiling blue:
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Tile to ceiling only if you want to spend a lot more money. Not just materials but labor costs at a premium because a scaffold will have to be involved. A lot of trips up and down a ladder to the scaffold with heavy material (thin set, grout, buckets of water to clean up the grout) and trips to the tile saw. Premium rate charge for that because it will slow down the work plus wear & tear on the tile-setter. Plus hauling in a scaffold, setting it up, taking it down, hauling it away. No need to avoid paint above tile. Proper prep, primer & paint will yield a good result. I suspect the peeling paint in the other bathroom was a case of improper prep. Since this is an old house, very likely someone came along and painted over a glossy oil-based paint with water base paint and omitted the bonding primer.
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carolyn53562
14 years ago
Ours are 12" from the ceiling. Either way will look nice. This is the only picture that I have on the computer of the windows--it's in a bedroom. We have a two story great room and all of my pictures seem to be of that room. I recommend that you go to open houses in your area to see the different window placements in person--that's the best way to find out which one you like best.

Here is a link that might be useful: window
bigkahuna
14 years ago
If they are in new home the rough opening for those windows are usually 6'-10 1/2" but should match any patio doors that may be in that same room ( or they will be off a few inches) Otherwise yes you can move them. You need to know what size structural headers need to go over the windows to know how tall the transoms can be (lvl's are stronger and can be shallower)over the lower windows. Then check what heights are available in the window manufacturer you are looking at assuming they arent custom and expensive. If you should go to 10' ceilings then you should go to 8' int /ext doors and window heads.
macv
14 years ago
The height of a window head is usually a trade off between enough space for window treatment and getting more light deeper into the room.
lsst
14 years ago
Our windows are about 6 inches off the floor. The space from the top of the ceiling to the top of the window trim is 25 inches. We have heavy crown molding so from the bottom of the molding molding to the top of the window is 19 inches.
hilltop_gw
14 years ago
We have nearly 24" above the windows and there's crown molding by the ceiling but I still thought it looked like too much empty space. I put a rectangle of molding trim above each window to fill in the space.

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