wood trim with white windows? pics anyone?

15 years ago

We are hoping to break ground next month on our dream house. Builder (and hubby) want to use Marvin Integrity windows and we have a choice between the wood clad and fiberglass (white interior only). It would be a $10K cost difference in the windows. $6K to do all stained trim versus painted trim. Hubby and I both love the look of wood (we'd do a timberframe if we could afford it!). The downstairs is nearly all open and has several large windows including two nearly 8ft expanses in the kitchen and living room, with a set of french doors in the middle. The floors will also be wood, with the exception of tile down the middle from the front door to the back french doors. The kitchen will be stained wood and there are 3 wood columns. Here's the dilemma. We are already pushing the budget without the wood. We are willing to do the extra $6K for the wood trim, but less sure about an extra 10K on top of that for the wood windows. If we did white (painted) trim and white windows, we would still probably do solid wood stained doors. Would stained trim look weird with white windows? I did a quick google search and did not find a lot of examples. Does anyone here have this? Any suggestions or comments?

Thanks!

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Comments (4)

mydreamhome
15 years ago
Not easy to find photos of, but I know we have alot of them in our area. I've never noticed that they looked awkward or anything. I believe these are the little things that give the house character. Do double check on that pricing--$10K difference seems rather high to me. We also looked at the Integrity Ultrex with wood and when I asked if the all Ultrex window would save a significant amount of money the answer was a little bit, but not much. Photo-wise this was all I could find (I especially like the last 3 photos):

Good Luck! Don't forget to post photos as you build--your house sounds lovely!
joyce_6333
15 years ago
I think it's very acceptable. See it all the time. Any combination of wood and white would be fine. Like you, I personally love stained trim and doors, and we did not go with Integrity because I did want the wood look windows. We ended up with Milgard in a wood grained look. It will match our trim perfectly. One thing I would suggest is that where you have more than one window together, that you look at framing around each window separately. The one thing I hate about vinyl or fiberglass windows is that flat vinyl piece between windows. We opted to put framing around each window. Hopefully after trim goes on, it will look like we envisioned. Hope this makes sense, hard to describe.
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fiveunderfive
Original Author
15 years ago
thanks for the pics, mydreammhome. I had a hard time finding some too.

Joyce - someone else just mentioned Milgard bc they offer a brown interior color. Our inspiration house has wood trim with dark (brown or black?) interior windows and the spec list states they are Marvin Integrity but the house was built in 1999. We have only looked at Marvin so far bc hubby was happy with that and it seems to be primarily what our builder installs. But we may need to look elsewhere if we are set on getting that look.

Also I do know what you mean about "framing" out the windows individually. I've seen a few pics before but have never given it much thought. Thanks for those pics. I will definitely share with hubby and see what he thinks. We have several large "banks" of windows - 2 specifically in our kitchen and LR that are 4 windows wide, and many of hte upstairs ones that are 2 or 3 wide. I think that little extra framing makes a substantial difference in impact. Now I just need to see if it will be a price difference. ugh. :)
montel (CA US 10b/Sunset 16)
15 years ago
You might also look at just a wood sill bottom for the windows.

We are planning to use the Marvin Integrity with Ultrex fiberglass inside and a sheetrock return. We will use a stained wood or white painted sill for all our windows.

I think that would save some money - though it won't look the same as windows with full trim around them. In our case we are doing a more modern home design and the sheetrock return will be fine for our needs.