ick... casement windows are such a pain, I've had them in 2 homes and finally replaced them all in current coatal small home. Everythng is expensive and diffficult to repair and fix with casements ex hinges and weather stripping, not to mention the screens are on the inside which no one in the South will tolerate year round. The interior crank handles get in the way of all window treatments. They are leaky windows. Once they have been painted once the weather stripping is gone because it is hard to convince painters not to paint the bulb type weather stripping .... very out of date window style ...unless you live in New England and can keep your windows open half the year ...

Hi, Greenhouse -- I still feel pretty new here myself, but let me say Welcome to Gardenweb Kitchen Forum! My kitchen is still under construction. In fact, the masons came today, coincidently, to raise the bottom of my window by about 11" to get it above the countertop. Thus, I cannot give you any of my pictures, but here is a link to one thread about windows behind ranges with several pictures, and here is one outside link with a nice picture of a window behind a range with a hood. I am not really nervous about the placement anymore. I decided to raise the window up so that the bottom of the window sill (properly called a "stool" if you are speaking to a window vendor) is about 3.5" above the top of the burners. I plan to make a stool out of my countertop material (an idea I got from GW, cannot remember who), and so that will "catch" any pans before it hits the window. Other thoughts I have had that might be useful to you. I realize that it may be important to make it look like this was planned, i.e., to try to avoid having it look like I just stuck a range in front of a window. To that end, I plan to use some obscure glass rather than clear glass. The way I decided to do this is to have a fixed, non-operable window, with two layers of thermal pane. Inside of this, I am going to have a stained glass panel made up by a local artisan, and just place that in front of the thermal pane. Then, on the inside, I will have a pane of plain glass, just to make it easy to clean. As I already mentioned, a stool out of countertop material should also help it look less like a standard window. Finally, I plan to tile around the window opening rather than use a wooden casing, as many normal windows do. I think that with all of that, it should look planned. Another issue you touched on was the hood. Since the whole point of keeping the window was to preserve the natural light, I am planning to use as slim of a hood as possible. I am thinking of one of those ones with very thin bottoms (like this Fisher&Paykel) or one of those with a glass canopy, which many companies make now. Unfortunately, I really fell in love with this Miele DA 249 glass canopy hood , but it is very expensive. The downside to these is that they tend to look very modern, and my kitchen was supposed to look more transitional/traditional. Oh well, you can't have everything! Oh, another thing: my range will be 30", but my window opening is about 34", so I decided to get a 36" hood so it covers all of the window area. Mounting the hood may be a bit of a challenge, as normally they should bolt to the wall behind the range, where you and I will have a window. One option would be to use a hood meant for an island, so it would hang from the ceiling. I don't think this will work for me because I need to vent out the wall, but it may work well for you. Instead, I am planning to use a regular wall-mount hood, but to make a support that "hangs" down from the top of the window, down to the level where the hood mounts are. Hope this helps! A_D

Hey There: inside mount (!) pleated or honeycomb shades for the windows are great and very functional. But this doesn't work with your sliding door...so the only option that I see are vertical blinds staged to the right side of the sliding door. On the left side you have an outlet and switch, so this is not an option. You need something sliding on a sliding door, everything else will make it inconvenient to use. Panel blinds to the left will also work...but they will block 1/4 of your door all the time... One last thing - the fabrics should match or being the same...we do offer this option for some fabrics that are available across different window treatment styles. www.PleatedBlindsStore.com

21 feet of opening is a significant number in earthquake country. Even with a shear wall on the other side, I'd forgo the 21 feet of opening in favor of a pair of openings and a wall in between. In my area, the seismic concerns win for most homeowners. It's not so much fear of collapse in the Big One or fear of pancaking in two-story houses and apartment complexes (a la Sylmar and Northridge). The constant settling and flexing from lots of mag 3-6 quakes affects how doors and windows open and close. 10 and 12 foot exterior door and window openings are affected, so are smaller openings.