subject: Bay Windows For A New View Out On The World [print this page] If you have ever had the pleasure of being in a house with bay windows you will know this feeling already. There is simply nothing like sitting inside the bay part of the bay window, perhaps with a cup of tea and a book, watching the world go by. The bay window is the absolute quintessential piece of Englishness. It is the call sign and indentifying mark of the smart British house. It is redolent in equal measures of the famous neatness of the British village street and the presentable opulence of an upper class drawing room. It is also the ultimate example of architectural brilliance the ability to make a person inside a house share in the life of the world outside it without getting cold or wet.
Heres the thing about bay windows. They take the whole idea of the window, which is of course to make the person inside see out, and the person outside see in, and extend it to its maximum expression. When you are inside a house with a bay window, you can recline in your nook and see a fully surrounding view of the world without having to actually go out into it. There is nothing to rival the warm, cosy feeling this gives you. Nothing, that is, except possibly being outside a house that has bay windows in it, at dusk, and looking in. There is probably no other feeling on earth that can be described as anything like the sensation of longing and sweetness a person gets when he or she is confronted with those three panes, yellow with the warm light inside, and the 3d glimpse of family life they give. When you stop to think that people almost always put their Christmas tree up in the bay window, you start to realise that there is something about the bay that bridges the gap between internal and external in a way no other kind of window can.
Enjoy bay windows from outside and from in. Recline on your sofa and feel that the beauty of nature has come inside with you, as your three panes offer a much broader and more inclusive aspect on the world than any single paned effort, or multi paned but flat planed effort, could give. Or wander down any street where the houses have bay window nooks, and feel that warmth start to rise in your heart as you glimpse the details of lives being lived in each home, and remember the last time you were stretched out with your favourite book in the bay nook of your own.
All of which leads us to an obvious conclusion. If you havent got bay windows already get them. They make an English house into an English home like no other single piece of architecture. Those long winter evenings will be a positive pleasure and of course a reminder to others of how cosy home life can really be.
