Kitchen with windows across one wall?

18 years ago

Hello,

I have seen some wonderful kitchens here at the Kitchens forum, some of those with a wall of windows spanning across one side. I love the openness! However, I am curious to know:

1. Are there times when you think there is too much direct light?

2. What kind of orientation/placement suits this openness better? (For example, sun will directly shine if your windows were facing south-west).

3.Do you position your cooktop a certain way to avoid direct glare?

4. Any other way the windows affect your general kitchen design....

Of course, when you give away an entire wall to windows, your cabinet space gets reduced and therefore I understand that this might only work for large open kitchens.

One more thing: I tried searching for some threads on this topic but found nothing specific -- but if anyone knows of a thread that has this info please point me to it!

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Comments (3)

tamjo44
18 years ago
We had one whole wall of window, and yes, we did find it to be too much. There was a 9' garden window and an 8' slider. Our kitchen faces east, and we had that sun blasting into the room at sun up. We also had white cabinets and white tile. I am not exaggerating when I tell you we put sunglasses on while cooking breakfast. In the summer, if I forget to close the blinds in the evening, the kitchen would be quite warm by the time we got up in the morning. We shrunk the garden window to a still generous 6' and the slider to a 5.5'. We still have lots of natural light and we gained two much needed upper cabinets. We've only been in the new kitchen a couple of weeks, but I can honestly say we don't regret the decision. Our sink is centered at the garden window and the cook top is on the opposite wall, so glare is not a problem.
alku05
18 years ago
Our kitchen has a wall with two large windows that face SW and WSW. The late afternoon sun can be pretty strong. The counter in front of my SWS window is my baking counter, and sometimes if I'm baking in the late afternoon I choose to knead or roll dough on the island instead. However, the beauty of seeing the setting sun cast shades of pink and orange across out kitchen makes that window worth it. Not to mention that we can see the sun set into the ocean out that window :).

It's in our plans to get semi-transparent sunshades for the kitchen windows to temper the afternoon sun without blocking their view. No doubt about it, we would definitely do those windows again.
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rosie
18 years ago
South is best in most parts of this country and definitely so in the hot states. During the hot months when the sun arcs high, this provides a bright sunny room all day long but avoids long hours of direct sunlight coming in from the east and west. In the winter months, when the sun arcs lower to the south and the warmth of direct sun is welcome, you have it through the south windows for most of the daylight hours.

That said, if possible, it's important to have light coming in from at least two directions, three is even better. Windows on only one wall tend to produce glare and eye strain as one turns from the shadowy sides of the room to the one bright-light side again and again.