Coloured window frames. 1970’s bathroom suites again?

So our 1960’s semi is way overdue the replacement of the UPVC mahogany effect glazing that was fitted in the mid 1990’s. I see a lot of recent installations are using grey frames, and a few using the kind of colours that remind me of the bathroom suite colours that we were all ripping out 10-20 years ago to go back to white. A few houses on our estate have a kind of muted green olive colour to their frames (not quite On-One 456 colour). Personally I think the grey looks OK, but other colours I think will date badly once the fashion passes. Currently I am thinking gey for a new portch and either white or mahogany again for the main frames. What colours have the STW collective gone for?

Grey can look good with the right house colour – can make an older property look much more modern.

That sage green is very fashionable at the moment but as soon as it starts appearing in council estates it will become unfashionable.

Anthracite looks good, some have white on the inside as well.

The previous owners to the house I just bought, thought wooden effect windows would look good. I really wish they bought white. Not a chance we can afford to replace otherwise good windows but combined with the greyish harling they make the house look pretty dreary.

Plan is to paint / render the house white when we can afford it…

We put Anthracite Grey bifolds in our ground floor extension, but it looks a lot more modern than the rest of the house. Everything else is white.

Depends on the style of property, to a large degree.

Certain new builds that have the right brick colour & maybe a bit of natural wood cladding can look good with green or grey accents.

Round are way there are a few people who seem to have jumped on the fashion band wagon without really considering the aesthetic of the whole house & have stuck grey window frames and composite door on a 1960’s red brick council semi and it just looks wrong.

A mate of mine had his white UPVC windows replaced with grey aluminium (much thinner, so larger glass area), put a grey composite door on with a matching style frosted glass panel down the side & had the cladding on the house re-done in cedar & the result is really good. It all goes together well & matches the style of the house, but if he’d have only done the windows & doors it wouldn’t have gone with the previous cladding.

there is a RAL code for window grey…

This is why I put oak frames in when I replaced the windows in the last house. Okay they need a bit of maintenance (original paint job is only good for ten years) but they looked good and can be repainted as fashions change.

Maybe someone needs to invent paintable UPVC?

I’ve just spent a lot of money on accoya windows and doors. window grey in a 1880’s cottage. look awesome, great craftmanship from a company less than a mile from my house. hopefully they will last a lifetime.

If it is on a street of similar houses I would stick with what everyone else has. We have a 1980s ‘mock Tudor’ house and the original frames were leaded glass with very dark brown-black frames. Almost everyone has replaced now with either black or grey-black and they fit in well. One person has put in faux oak shit brown frames and they look shocking.

A lot of 1930’s houses round our way have the grey ones now – they look good in that style or architecture (with painted render) imo. Not sure in a traditional brick building, though.

Maybe someone needs to invent paintable UPVC?

Kinda defeats the whole benefit of them in the first place!

White is a modern window frame colour. All the way back to the 18th century up until the 1950s windows would have been a specific colour. I’ve done done historically accurate mid Georgian buildings that had the Windows frames in Invisible Green.
I prefer darker frames because the accentuate the void in the solid plane of the external envelope. But I’m an architect and that kind of thing interests me.

This grey trend almost explains the hideous flats that have been built (on what was green land) near me. The frontage is rendered/painted brown and grey and looks like some kind of prison dwelling. Fashion eh? Looks awful now, will look even worse in 10 years.

 A few houses on our estate have a kind of muted green olive colour to their frames

It’s a legal requirement in some Cotswolds villages.

I prefer darker frames because they accentuate the void in the solid plane of the external envelope.

🤔👌😂

They’ve just built a load of manky student flats near the station in Royal Leamington Spa and they are clad in grey and black squares a bit like a chessboard. I mean, wtaf? This is Leamington Spa ffs..

Surely it depends on your what everyone else on your estate is doing? https://www.countrylife.co.uk/out-and-about/theatre-film-music/telling-an-estate-by-its-colours-16759

I prefer darker frames because the accentuate the void in the solid plane of the external envelope

The muck doesn’t show up as much as on a white frame either!!

.

Kinda defeats the whole benefit of them in the first place!

Well you’d still have most of the UPVC benefits: cheaper, no worries about rot or woodworm, narrower frames etc. But it wouldn’t look so plasticy and you’d be able to paint it a different colour.

accentuate the void in the solid plane of the external envelope

Brought this to my mind for some reason. Which is no bad thing

“Darling, show me the place where the paint is made that colours the world
where the light is created that makes shine the splendour of the dawn
the lines and shapes of all forms
the sound that fills the orbit
show me the thought that illuminates the darkness of the void…”

accentuate the void in the solid plane of the external envelope. But I’m an architect

You don’t say?

I’ll probably get anthracite window frames to match the front door (can’t afford to replace yet though), I think white frames look pretty bad on a lot of properties it’s just they’ve become the norm. I think grey will date OK, not sure about avocado or rose pink though.

I wanted grey when we put new sash windows in – missus insisted on white as she said it wouldn’t date in the same way. Wish I’d argued harder tbh…

Previous owners started the replacement windows in our house with ‘light oak’.
I really, really wish they hadn’t.

The continent has many different colour windows and houses – and I prefer it.

Aluminium is going to be making more and more of an impact on the market over the coming years, you will start to see it being used by the higher end mass house builders sooner rather than later. That grey is all good till you mark the foil then you will be showing the white upvc underneath.

Am tempted by slim profile Alu. Are there just a handful of systems out there that everyone uses?

Aluminium is going to be making more and more of an impact on the market over the coming years,

Specified aluminium windows over 20 years ago – I don’t think we’ve specified anything else since apart from
a couple of refurb schemes with W20/W40.
There are many aluminium system – depends what you want and your budget.

But it wouldn’t look so plasticy and you’d be able to paint it a different colour.

Get better UPVC windows and they don’t look plasticy and are hard to tell from painted wood. Even the corner joins mirror wood joins.

Changing 7 windows this year as the wooden ones are rotten and were a pain in the arse to keep painted. Going for light greeny/grey colour as they look very good on a thatched, white lime washed cottage and always will.

I thought you could buy special upvc paint?

Companies out there will spray your white frames grey to keep on trend. Lots of interiors going grey at the moment as well. All horribly depressing at this grey flat light time of year.

What did they used to say, “grey will never go out of fashion because…”

While we’re on it…

STW design and colour advice.

Back of the house is all ‘light oak’ uPVC 🤮

Front is wood windows, dark brown

What colour door and frame uPVC/composite?

Grey.