Victorian Bay Window Construction

Victorian and edwardian oriel windows.

Victorian bay window construction.

Bay window italianate late to the party in the 1880s these took over flat front italianates when lot sizes got smaller which resulted in using bay windows to increase square footage. Most people call them bay windows when located on the first floor and oriel windows only if they are on an upper floor. A few people built bay windows onto their homes and before long christopher verplanck said everybody did them now back then san francisco was isolated said jay gifford a san francisco resident and tour guide for victorian home walk. An oriel window is a set of windows arranged together in a bay that protrudes from the face of a building on an upper floor and is braced underneath by a bracket or corbel.

Bay windows are a prominent feature of victorian domestic architecture but were originally incorporated into designs during the english renaissance period as a means of making a room appear larger providing better views and admitting more natural light than a window which was flush with the wall line. And what was local was redwood. In 1894 the building act changed the regulations so that windows no longer had to be flush with the exterior wall. A victorian bay window construction will be one of the trickier jobs that a builder might come across as it needs to be full of period details in order to look authentic and attractive.

Here is our step by step guide about how to build a bay window. In other words we had to build with what was local.