An architect would design the project including all the details you mentioned and observe the progress and quality of the contractor's work if that is included in the owner-architect contract.

An architect's design may show these features, but you will depend in the GC and the trim carpenter to get it right. In most cases the GC will provide you with options during the pricing and materials selection (how wide for casings and baseboard, casing design, baseboard design, etc.), allowing for the material and labor cost in the estimate. Then you hope he/she hires a good trim carpenter who can implement it correctly. If you have specific preferences, then make sure you see an physical design or mockup of what you want before they start installing it all over the house.

It is also important to ensure the GC checks the plumb and level construction of all the walls during the build, and the quality of the drywall finish, since its hard to get good looking trim if the wall is not vertical and level.

Bruce

Why would you undertake a project like this? Spending 900K on a home acquisition and remodel in a neighborhood of 500K homes is never the best way to spend your spare cash. Unless it’s just a fun hobby and you don’t care about selling.

Its HU again.

There are different ways to design a house. If you choose a Design-Build company it will provide both design and construction often with separate contracts for each phase. That works well with companies where their designer takes the lead and details all the things you said you care about but it can sometimes be left until the construction phase or possibly overlooked.

If you hire an architect as the designer and bid the project from the architect's documents he/she would document all of the things you mentioned and would oversee the work of the contractor if you include construction phase oversight in the contract.

Be careful if you use an architect but omit construction oversight or hire a design-build company. From what you described above, you might find yourself in a role for which you are not prepared.

You want a General Contractor who has an amazing window sub. A sub who has done the type of retrofitting you're describing many times without failure and can prove it.

An architect can prepare construction documents that can cover every detail that is important to you and the design of the architecture. It is also important that the General Contractor and Subcontractors can carryout those details.

Your budget will help guide your selection of architect vs. designer vs. design/build firm. In our area, one architectural firm quotes design fees for remodel projects at 12% of project cost (and they won't work on small projects.)

If you choose an independent architect or designer, get your remodeling contractor on board early in the design process to help ensure whatever is designed can be done within your intended budget.

Be careful when applying design details from large, traditional homes to a 1960's rancher. The scale and particular details may not be appropriate.

We're remodeling an old house and our architect has played this role. She spec'd the windows in the original plans, but as they discovered some unpleasant surprises during demo, she came and spent more than an hour with the window rep to go through each individual window, making adjustments as necessary. Then drew up new elevations and reviewed each of the window details before it was finalized. She bills her time on an hourly basis and it's worth every penny. It also helps that she has done dozens of projects with our contractor and there's a lot of mutual trust/respect. I didn't know how important that would be but now that I see it playing out, it would have been a lot more difficult without the architect playing an active role during construction and a good rapport between the architect and the builder.

Do you have pics of what you're wanting? Because a picture is worth 1,000 words.

Typically, showing a photo of what you're seeking to the GC during design/bid, making it an explicit part of the contract, being thoroughly involved in the ordering of the millwork needed, and being onsite a LOT to make sure the trim carpenter understands your vision will ensure that you get what you want. Be forewarned, though, that there will likely be substantial upgrades in pricing for what is now considered non-stock options.

Celadon - it's a sacrifice as a parent you make to live in a less aesthetically pleasing neighborhood for a good school district. $900K for a remodel seems high (I was very-high-level estimating around a third of that), but the neighborhood is more like $1.5m for the land and an original 60's house to $2.5m (for the complete teardown rebuilds), so it is worth it.

Charles Ross - yeah, I know proportions are important. My ideal is finding something that was late 40's or early 50's where I can see the original windows' footprint (so not so much the ranch style that is predominant), but perhaps one of the owners took out and replaced with aluminum/vinyl, and I can go and "correct" that mistake. But the stock of 40's and early 50's homes, while not as dearth as pre-WWII, is still extremely limited.

Shead - I don't have a picture of the house to remodel (haven't bought it), but have tons of pictures of the windows I would want (pull up an house from, say, 1920-1941 that has the original windows). The problem is that I haven't found any pictures of any 60's house remodeled "right", so I myself struggle with being comfortable with what the end result could possibly look like (which is what Charles Ross is getting at with proportions). Yeah, I'd expect it to be more expensive since it's not stock (which is why it seems so many people choose the cheap way out). But maybe if enough people start demanding it...

Actually, there does FINALLY seem to be some movement back to these pre-WWII style windows with Farmhouse trend remodels from the last couple of years having proper sills and aprons, though maybe still a little skimpy on the width of these planks. I don't care for the Farmhouse trend myself, but if it means more tradesmen are becoming familiar and skilled with this design, more will understand what I'm getting at. But yes, I understand I'd need to be a hawk overseeing this specific part.

Its HU again.

"Oftentimes, no sill or apron."

All windows have a "sill"; it's the exterior bottom part of the window frame. However, many manufacturers no longer offer the thick projecting sill nosing found on older windows. Such a sill can be added below a modern nail-fin window and extended to the outer edges of he jamb trim. I do that on most of my projects many of which are renovations of historic houses subject to the approval of historic commissions that must also meet the energy code.

When you say "no sill or apron" you are probably referring to an interior "stool" and the "apron" that sits under it which are not part of the window but added by a finish carpenter so you can pick whatever you want from a molding catalog.

The width of the other 3 sides of the frame of a modern nail-fin window is about 1 1/4" so adding a 5/4 (1" thick) X 4 (3 1/2" wide) casing trim appears to be 4 3/4" wide. I like to add an outer band molding especially if the trim is 3/4" thick.

When windows are paired I usually place two studs between them to mimic the sash weight pocket space of older windows.

I have to agree that this amount of attention paid to historic window detailing might be lost on a ranch house but if that's what you want, you should do it..

Azek Historic Sill

Hu - this is a picture of one of the window bottoms of my current house (built in 2006, pretty common for the era). It's not the most egregious violator out there - tried to walk the neighbor but felt a little guilty standing to take a pic of someone's home when everyone is home right now, but I will do so maybe later tonight. Maybe "technically" there's a sill there, but nothing to write home about.

And here's one of my neighbor's window (they remodeled around 2015).

Granted, it's a back of the house window, so maybe they didn't care so much about the aesthetics for this particular window. But is an example of how windows are commonly put together around here. All of my house's windows are constructed as the example.

Not sure why my the pic of my neighbors window doesn't show up. But here it is.

It's the sketches and notes--welcome back!

If you're really interested in the historical accuracy of a ranch, you might start by reading this article in Old House Online:

https://www.oldhouseonline.com/house-tours/rebirth-of-the-ranch-house

Then go from there. I think it's a great idea to try for authenticity, but don't plunk down Colonial casings on a ranch house; it just won't work.

Just like a bad accident that you can't look away. Very welcome back.

Thanks, closed the summer house and now down to one project. It was either this or home improvement.

It appears the windows posted are PVC with 4 sided integral trim and nail fins. I assume this is what you don't want so I'm not sure why you photographed them.

HU - That's correct. The pictures are what I don't want. I posted them to show an example of work done in recent years (by current tradesmen) of windows without exterior sills (to address your comment that "all windows have sills"). I took a couple more pics today of even more egregious examples lacking anything resembling a sill (excuse the poor composition on the second one. I didn't want to break my stride to take it. People post all the time on Nextdoor about the suspicious people taking pictures of their homes and I don't want my picture blasted all over Nextdoor as being one such offender 🤣).

Then there's the third picture with this picture frame window approach, oh, and let's add a sill at the bottom because you're supposed to have a sill, right?

The fourth is another neighbor's house (Farmhouse) that was rebuilt in 2018. Shows the slow return of the sill back into the design.

A window frame has 4 parts: a head, 2 jambs and a sill. Even if the sill doesn't have a traditional shape or projection, it's still a sill.

If you buy a house with masonry clading it will be more difficult to add the windows you have described.

June - I'm not trying to turn it into a Victorian, I just would like to understand if it's possible to improve the window aesthetics at all or would it really be throwing good money after bad.

There are two houses in my neighborhood that are from 1953 (I'm assuming the windows are original from what I can tell by looking at the whole house [doesn't look like it got a 1980's "upgrade" like so many around here]). And they are not too depressing (meaning I could live with it). I'm wondering if the third house could have looked closer to the first two if it had windows with depth, sills, aprons. This third house has a positive trait (why I'm using it as an example)I don't usually see with window replacements in that it is taller (extended further down/"cut down" I believe is the term), than what I usually see. They got half way there, in my opinion. I understand the third doesn't have nearly the same in overhang as the others (which isn't my favorite anyway). But they are all roughly the same era of ranch homes, the third being representative of like half the inventory of homes here.

The photos are taken from too far away to tell much about the windows. Its not even possible to tell if they've been replaced.

In the early 50's a wood double-hung window would have had wood casing trim attached to the frame at the factory instead of a nailing fin and the sill would have extend to the outer edges of the trim. These windows would have been installed in the rough opening and secured by nailing the casing trim to the wall.

The positioning of the sash and the shape of the sills would have been similar to the old windows you have been describing. This kind of window was still being made in the 60's and early 70's. I miss them.