Help! What on earth to do with this internal window opening??

[curiouscat1987]

We're in the midst of a side return kitchen extension and have the same issue a lot of people have about what to do with the window that used to bring light into the middle room. This window will now be between the middle room and the kitchen. A lot of people just brick up the old window, however that would leave our middle room way too dark, so we want to remove the window and frame and leave the opening, but pretty stumped on what exactly to do with it!
The main points about it are:

• from the middle room the bottom of the window opening starts quite low down so would need to be made safe somehow so people dont fall through it into the kitchen! All i can think of is bricking up the bottom bit to raise the height a little but would love any genius ideas on this?
• the floor heights of the middle room and kitchen are different (kitchen is one step lower than the middle room).
• we need to maximise the light coming through it so although we'd be happy with some shelving or similar we cant have it all the way up etc
• we've thought about just keeping the current window/replacing it with something to match the new kitchen window/door but feel like this would look really odd. Would love opinions on this!

Thank you to anyone creative who can help out with this, its got me stumped and pinterest has very little in the way of internal window openings of this size!

What’s your kitchen layout, will you have units in that corner? If so then you’ll need a shorter internal window to start above the units.

If not then the usual solution I’ve seen is having a glazed door there (ideally with glazed transom above) to let light through and also link up the two rooms. If you have a door there, that back room will get used more, IME. You would need a step down from the door.

Could you have white plantation shutters that filter the light and open fully or in half? Remove the glass first.

Take it out. Take the bricks underneath it out too, to make it into a door way. Put a step on the other side.
I’m not a builder so I don’t know if this would be acceptable. Maybe you have to have a fire door between openings?
Beautiful window though. I’d buy it off you!

How about putting a glass door in?
Or there was a phil and kirsty revisit on recently where they'd just taken the window out, plastered and painted it and used it as a shelf.

Are you not knocking through to the new extension? I have seen a few houses with windowless middle rooms and I have discounted them when looking to buy.

Leave it to retain character, it's lovely. Put a desk or a drinks cabinet in front of the window in the living room to make the most of the view thought it. I'd say it would be a shame to remove it. Is the rest of the house full of original features?

I would commission a stained glass window to go in the space (or else get an old one as architectural salvage), but then I've always wanted an excuse to do that!

We had a similar window in our stairwell, which then became an internal window when we did a two story extension to the back of the house.

We left the window as is (the builders somehow made the shower water proof with the window). The other side of the window is a shower in guest bathroom. There's plenty of light in the new bathroom and it does keep the stairs from getting too dark.

You could keep the existing window or have some glass designed.

I've attached a photo. That glass is original. However, we did have new stained glass designed for our front door and it was a great experience. Door turned out lovely.

You could knock out that whole wall section and put in floor to ceiling Crittall style panel. V expensive but looks great. I expect by now there are good knock offs that don't cost as much.

Thanks all! Sorry should have clarified, the access to the kitchen will be through the current doorway on the right hand side. We will have units on the other side of the opening so not possible to have a doorway there too (would have loved to but left us with not enough kitchen units!)

Kitchen plan attached!

This was the front door design

@VegimalCrudite @Hexagon2 thanks! I agree its a lovely original feature and such a shame to lose it, i just left it would look really odd to keep it in, but maybe we should rethink that...

@Persipan @The8thMonth i hadnt thought about stained glass! Those examples look lovely, but I think this is such a big window it'd make it almost too much of a feature and a bit overbearing (the rest of the downstairs is open plan so it'd literally be the first thing you'd notice from everywhere!)

I would leave it in as a feature - ive seen it done before and it looked fine. I wouldnt put coloured glass in as you want light to come through from the kitchen.

Do you mind seeing through? I would try painting the frame in a bold color to see if it looks good as a feature. If not, it won't have cost much. Try looking up room dividers that let light through maybe instead of internal windows.

Could you put in shelves open to both sides - and use them for a few choice (maybe coloured glass items/bottles) for a nice aesthetic, that still lets light in?

Could you raise the wall height to worktop level on the kitchen side and then top with a piece of wood and then put shelves across?

Love the idea of stained glass.

Is it wide enough to actually be the doorway? Then close up the existing doorway and move the units along so you end up with a u shaped kitchen and the doorway leads straight to the dining area, replacing window with fully glazed door or even no door. Shame to lose such a nice window though, but it looks like you're going to anyway.

@StapMe yes we did consider that, but because the dining room is open plan (including the stairs to the right side), we decided it'd make the middle room feel like a glorified hallway if the doorway to the kitchen was to replace the window, and would make furniture placement etc very tricky!

Either the stained glass option or remove the window and build shelves in there. The light will still come through and it will be a decorative room divider accessible from both sides.