A Little Light on the Subject

In the design, only two spaces didn’t have a window: the laundry/utility/pantry and the stairway. No problem with the first one; we wouldn’t want to give up the wall space in include a window. We can use it more efficiently.

The stairway is different. We didn’t want that to be dark in a house that otherwise should be full of light.

CAD drawing of stairway Click image to enlarge
CAD drawing of stairway
Click image to enlarge

velux skylight

Beyond the lack of a window, I thought the design was for the stairway side walls to be solid, full height, rather than being half-height or there being a railing. That would block the light from the top floor. Off I went to Kevin for clarification and to propose an additional window on the front of the house.

He had the architect send the CAD visualizations of the stairs and there is a railing instead of a full-height wall. Good.

Both the architect and Kevin thought the window on the front was not a good idea. It would give the front of the house a strange, unbalanced look. I had to agree.

They proposed a skylight instead. We decided against that option, as we were concerned that it would look out of place on this house and that skylights seem to like to leak.

My return proposal was a window in the other wall of the stairway. This side is not particularly visible from the front of the house and a window would look fine there.

Problem solved.

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