Window advice needed - old stone cottage

[MuddyWellyNelly]

Going to be hard without pictures, but I don't want to out myself given I post on conception boards a lot...

We live in a sandstone cottage (really a farmhouse). It is a large 2-up-2-down, with a side extension that has the kitchen and utility. It also has a pvc conservatory (shudder). Our windows desperately need replacing, they are double glazed but done, and are currently white pvc. I have no idea what to replace them with. Our issues are this:

1. The windows are oversized (upstairs they are 175cms wide), not traditional cottage size. So no sash and case, and no small panes/lead. I think we can get off with some georgian bars, or maybe just a set of 3 casements. Need to ensure it looks traditional and not art deco by mistake!
   

1. Downstairs we have patio doors in our dining room. I think these should be french doors but not sure again re plain, georgian bars etc.
   

1. Conservatory is pvc. It would not have been what I'd add to a 300 year old stone built house, but it's here now. It's a sort of mahogany effect. I don't want to emulate this in the windows.
   

1. Front door is oak. A cottage style, quite traditional.
   

1. Materials. We are surrounded by trees. OH is adamant we aren't having wood as he doesn't want to have to paint them every year. I don't want PVC. What does composite look like, any experiences?
   

1. Colour. Current windows are white. The sandstone is quite grey and cleaning and re-pointing the house is a long way down our list of priorities. I'm therefore not sure I want a wood/dark stain as I think it would look too heavy. So I think either white, or cream, or a colour such as a greeny/blue (channelling my inner french).
   

Any suggestions. Whenever I google "stone cottage windows" I nearly always find pictures of little tiny windows with hundreds of lights. Due to the size of them, I think it would be like looking at a chess board, so going to need to be less panes, but I'm finding it hard to picture it!

[MuddyWellyNelly]

Sorry should have said I think something like this or this as opposed to too many panes like these

[MuddyWellyNelly]

Sorry for cluster posting. I actually think this wood or wood effect looks nice, but our stonework isn't as smart as this

[lavendersun]

Look at this thread. We actually have 'naice' pvc in a 300 year old farmhouse, not sure I would have put them in but I can't think why not other than I like wood as they look pretty good and were approved by the conservation people.

DH loves the idea of wood too, but we wouldn't paint them ourselves so I suppose that the fact they are PVC has saved us quite a bit.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/2209652-Cottage-windows-options-pvc-or-wood

[MuddyWellyNelly]

Thank you for the link. That thread largely talks about houses that have sash windows (and usually the original ones). Ours are very wide and very plastic, so definitely neither the original sized opening nor the original window! That's why it's so hard to know what "look" to go for though, as cottages usually have the types of window being talked about there.

The thread does generally seem to be against pvc in an old house though, and a very large part of me agrees.

[lavendersun]

Does it?, I must not have realised that when I joined in as it was called 'Cottage Windows options or something like that' and I have cottage windows in a farmhouse.

Look at the pvc window companies mentioned - ours are from Residence 9 - look through their homeowner section. The Cottage Windows tab looks wide with three windows in each opening.

www.residence9.co.uk/homeowners/cottage-windows who made

[MuddyWellyNelly]

Thank you, they have a very useful gallery. Unfortunately nowhere near us but it certainly gives me some ideas. So are they actually a composite then?

[lavendersun]

I believe they are composite but to be honest other than the wood grain effect and colour choice (we have white) I am not really sure what the difference is!

[pyrrah]

Is the property listed?

[MuddyWellyNelly]

No, not listed.

[Purplehonesty]

Hi we did a barn conversion recently and went with aluminium clad timber windows from Nordan. You can have any colour you like and any size/style.
So you could have the greeny grey colour, they look really really smart, liked painted wooden windows but you have no maintenance for and a 25 year guarantee.
They weren't massively expensive either. I think 12k overall and we have lots of huge windows

[pyrrah]

That is a help! I'm not a fan of PVC, but there are some quite nice ones around these days.

I would probably stick with white whatever you go with - or one of the lovely F&B greeny/grey/blue shades. UPVC can be painted very successfully nowadays - there are companies that specialise in it.

If you go with smaller panes, you will reduce your light (leaded windows reduce the light by 20% at least).

You probably already know this, but when you come to re-render the house, do have it done in lime not cement especially if your walls are sandstone. Cement is death to old stone buildings and you can end up with serious damp problems. It's also a lovely colour (or you can add tints to it).

[MuddyWellyNelly]

Hi thanks for the hints. I will have a look at NorDan as they have showrooms near by and we've talked to them at homebuilding shows etc.

Pyrrah hmm does that mean we could get our horrid unmatching conservatory painted then? Wow, that might help. Yes I love those F&B type colours.

Good tip about (not) reducing light, we definitely want as few panes as we can get off with, whilst still suiting the property. The current windows are very 80's bungalow so we need a happy compromise.

The house isn't rendered luckily, just still bare stone. I think at some point a lot of our pointing did get replaced with cement, but luckily not all of it. Touching wood frantically, we haven't had a damp problem so far, but yes will definitely use lime mortar. We did look into internal or external insulation, but decided against it as we don't want to compromise the breathe-ability of the walls, we are just going for wood-burner, new windows and doors and thick curtains instead!