Restoring and renovating doors windows and shutters in France

Doors, windows and shutters

The primary consideration for all these items is that they need to be in character with the building, both in terms of their style and their shape and size. Study other buildings of a similar age and style in your region to determine the traditional style.

Adding new openings in an existing building

New door and window openings require a declaration of work to be given to the local mairie.

When new openings are being added to an existing building, in order that doors and windows can be added, the challenge is to add these new openings so that they look natural for the building. With a project such as a barn this is a more significant problem, because in reality the barns didn’t have these openings originally. So who can say what is 'authentic'.

All the same there are clues. The age of the building is the biggest clue, and then its style of construction. You may find that windows above a certain size were never added, or that windows were seldom symetrical with each other. Stone lintels were generally only used for openings up to a metre wide or so, with wood being used for larger openings.

The need for light in a building is seen as more important nowadays, but there was a reason for small windows - it keeps the interior cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. Doubtless double-glazing and special types of glass has reduced this need to some degree, but it has not eliminated it completely.

If you have too many windows you can always block them up again. These old openings give interesting clues to the history of the building (the stone at the bottom was the outlet from an internal stone sink)

 

Various Other

• One difference you might like to remember if you are renovating a house in France - windows almost open inwards, and shutters open outwards from inside. So if you put a sink, a bed or a cupboard in front of a window, it will be difficult to open and close the shutters. Similarly a kitchen window behind a sink can not be opened if the tap is tall or the window is low.
• House insurance policies in France invariably insist that shutters are closed when the property is vacant, so you can not simply decide to always leave the shutters open. It is possible to buy attachments for shutters that make them easier to open and close without dangling yourself from the window, but these may not be beautiful and will not always solve the problem. Just one little example of the kind of thing you need to consider when planning your house, and will almost certainly overlook.
• One significant problem for us was getting the window and door openings to be the size shown on the plans. Working with stone, the mason claimed it was very difficult to be exact. The consequence of this is that instead of being able to buy 'standard size' doors and windows, we had to pay twice as much for 'custom made' fittings. Although they are very close in size to the plans, a couple of centimetres difference adds a lot to the cost. I did hear of someone who demanded that all their windows be redone to fit standard windows, but I don’t know if that was for a new house. Certainly I doubt if the mason here would or could redo the openings here with two centimetres difference in size without making the alteration look worse than the original.
• Different regions have their own distinctive style of shutters, doors and windows. so if you buy shutters in the local discount DIY superstore you should be aware if you are buying the correct style. Look at other properties first. Shutters were not traditionally painted in bright colours -again, there will be a local tradition to guide you.
• Many if not most new windows are supplied with little bars that divide the panes of glass into squares. I have been told that these little panes never existed on buildings before the 19^th century, so are another example of something that looks quaint and original but is not. Same with shutters - a 17th century house was not usually designed to have shutters.

And the little window picture? that is a hand forged and shaped spiked iron bar up the middle to keep cats out. Makes the window difficult to clean as well...