Thanks for the advice red! Yes-- 9' ceilings and Andersen windows (400 series is what we get standard).

As for the inspiration pics I know the first is Crisp Architects, the rest are sourced in my pinterest board for the build (link below).

Here is a link that might be useful: New Build Board

I think the other part of your "lack of cohesiveness" is that you don't have the grids on the lower windows in the sun room. Was that by choice? If you look at your inspiration pics, you have grids on every pane.

@Kirkhall -- yes, the inspiration pics are 6 over 6 or some other full grid. The windows we went with on the front of the house are 6 over 1 and our builder/architect suggested we keep them the same throughout the house for consistency. It was something I struggled with at first, but I'm happy with the look and I think for all intents and purposes the kitchen and living room look great. My issue with the sunroom is less the grid on the window and the door (although, yes, it is inconsistent) and more the height and transom disparity.

And frankly, the squatty transoms overall. They are not even close to anything that I had imagined.

My issue with the sunroom is less the grid on the window and the door (although, yes, it is inconsistent) and more the height and transom disparity.
And frankly, the squatty transoms overall. They are not even close to anything that I had imagined.

Then it sounds like you need to replace those windows with ones that look more like the ones in the third picture you posted. What I am hearing is you want bigger windows. Since you can't make them closer to the ceiling, you are going to have to make them closer to the floor.

Or, get rid of the transoms everywhere but over the door. If they just ordered larger windows (taller) but did not lower them, this will not be 6k fix. And, you will get more light. You can keep them over the door, since they make your overall height on everything the same. And, keep your 24" wall height to avoid tempered glass and to make it more useable for a dining space. But get rid of the funny squatty windows.
I wish I was a photoshopper to show you what that might look like.

I also think the "squatty" transoms don't work. You would do better to skip the transom and just get windows that fill the entire space. I suspect that all of your inspiration pics show rooms with 10 ft tall or taller ceilings.

With 9 ft ceilings, either you have to use very short transoms or the line between transom and window falls too close to eye level for comfort. And the problem with the short transoms is that each "lite" winds up being much wider than it is tall which creates a horizontal "squatty" effect. If you look at the inspiration pics, all of the "lites" in the transoms appear to be at least a tiny bit taller than they are wide...so they don't look "squatty." I don't think the problem has anything to do with your choice not to have divided lites on the bottom sash. The transoms would still look squatty even if you had SDLs in the bottom sashes.

If it were me - and I could afford to do it, I would skip the transoms and replace the kitchen and sunroom windows and transoms with windows that are as tall as the current windows and transoms combined. No reframing should be necessary so, while not cheap, it might be less than $6K. Even tho the kitchen windows look okay (because they are so narrow that the transoms don't look tooooo short in comparison to their width), the kitchen and sunroom are so close together that it would look really odd if you had transoms in the kitchen and not in the sunroom.

Just curious tho, are the ceilings at the front of your house taller so that you were able to use taller transoms on those window or did you decide not to do transoms on the front windows?

Kirkhall

That is exactly what I did. I got rid of the tiny transoms for the windows and coughed up the change for transoms for front French doors. For the back French doors we made them 8 ft tall. I do not regret losing my transoms.

I did not make these decisions all on my own. Angie at our architects office --spitzmiller & Norris, helped us.

Niki-pics for you. Forgive the mess.

{{gwi:1479660}}
{{gwi:1479661}}

Thank you everyone for all of the advice and feedback. My husband and I went back to the house tonight and spent a few hours there weighing all of our options.

We are going to first see if we can adjust the header above the window in our kitchen to accommodate for a higher (bigger) transom. From what the builder told my husband that isn't possible and it doesn't seem like there will be enough room between the bottom of the kitchen windows and the countertops to extend the frame downward.

If that is the case we are thinking we will stick with the 'squatty' transom and make the windows extend further to the floor to get that wall to wall look I was striving to achieve. I'll likely have them replace the transom over the door with a squattier version to make it look intentional. I'm not a whiz in photoshop but I was able to put together what that might look like and we're happy with the result even though it's not where we started.

{{gwi:1479662}}

{{gwi:1479663}}

With this option we'll replace only three of the four windows and hopefully the reframing won't be a huge undertaking and expense.

I am still dumbfounded why the plans did not show how squatty (if this is a word) the transoms would appear. I would ask the architect what they were thinking as Andersen has all the sizes available everywhere including glass sizes.

My plan called for taller transoms and the architect was not the problem. We saw schematics of both at the lumberyard. We also had the nine ft ceilings and the taller transoms fit just fine, if we were willing to pay for the custom transom out of the Andersen line. The standard line would not fit the 9 ft ceiling, but would a 10 ft ceiling.

We were not willing to pay for the custom transom. We did time and materials.

Perhaps, your builder chose to go with the shorter transom to save money on his part.

Forgive me if this is not the case.

Either way, I'm sure your house is going to be beautiful.

red_lover -- the issue isn't getting the taller transoms in the sunroom and living room, it is getting them in the kitchen. I was basically told that it can't happen with the double hung windows that we have in there and so my option would be to fix the sunroom and living room and either have different transoms in the kitchen or replace that window also and have no transoms in there. Since the rooms are all open to one another we didn't want to have three different transom styles in the room (above the kitchen, above the windows and above the door).

Our builder is putting together a cost estimate for me this week and then decision time. It went from "$5-6K" yesterday to "thousands and thousands of dollars" today. Lord have mercy. I may just have to live with this which infuriates me. But I'm trying not to get worked up until I know what the actual cost to fix this would be.

Oh, and I was told that there is no returning the current windows and paying a restocking fee since all Andersen windows are custom made. I was told I could keep the windows and try to resell them myself. I find the lack of a restocking fee hard to wrap my head around but I haven't had time yet today to dig deeper into the validity of this.

You could widen the total window opening 3 inches and put a stud between each unit. That would allow the headers to be quite shallow especially if designed by an engineer.

You could also drop the windows a few inches without needing to use safety glass (unless you want it for other reasons). Unless the window is adjacent to a door, the code requirement for safety glass is for panels larger than 9 sq. ft.; bottom edge less than 18" above the floor; and top edge greater than 36" above the floor.

I suspect you could more than double the glass height of the transoms using the same windows.

Andersen generally will not take product back that was made to order which yours obviously was as the grids appear to be the permanently applied type. Especially if it has been installed.

Your mock up looks nice and I think moving the windows towards the floor makes a big difference in getting the look you want. I went through the same thing with my breakfast room windows and ended up moving them and adding a transom above.

Could you not move the current windows down and then use the same sort of transom that is above the door? Then use taller windows without transoms in the kitchen?

I would do what Cotton Penny suggested....Lower the windows into sunroom and family room, and get that same pretty transom that is over the doors over all the windows. I would just get a different set of windows for the kitchen, I wouldnt think that would look odd...they are over a sink and seem more functional.

@millworkman - thanks, that answers that question. They are mulled units that were ordered to fit the specs created by our builder.

@renovator - the original plans my builder had was similar to your suggestion (although the windows were stopped at 24" from the ground with both plans) however the spacing he had between windows and window/transom was 5". I scrapped that because I felt like it was way too much moulding. I was never given an option of a 3" spacing (which is essentially what the mulled units are).

@cotton_penny -- the units are mulled with the transom. So the units either need to be kept or scrapped. If I scrap them I can do whatever I want (with a price tag, of course). I can order new taller windows for the sunroom and the living room with a larger transom and then replace the window in the kitchen with a transomless taller version. But then I'm paying for four windows to be replaced instead of three. My head is spinning from it all. And I'm terrified of spending more money and still not being happy.

I too would lower the windows to 18" and then use the larger transom. I think the squatty transoms look less custom, and a bit cheap (I had one above my front door in my old house). The other option would be to do no transom on the windows and leave the one over the door.

Transoms complicate things as far as window treatments and light control goes. If you need light control in the playroom, it might be easier to eliminate them altogether on the windows. . . that way you can use any blind/shutter without having to cover the transom or leave them uncovered which can also look strange.

Good luck!

I'm pretty sure you can take appart the mulling. it depends on how its put together, but in my old kitchen windows when we got them, they were mulled at the distributor, which was basically they put a handful of screws in it and a trim piece.

I'm with Chris on that you can likely take apart the mulled units as they are usually just screwed together. Although the glass may not meet the requirements then if you lower the existing.

So as it turns out you are correct, the transoms do separate from the window units. Our builder told us the cost to tear apart/reassemble the units would cost more in labor than a whole new unit. I'm fighting for a cost breakdown now.

The cost for three new window units was about $8200 (labor + materials). They are charging us $2K for a full day labor even though it is a half day job because the framers have to come back with a special machine. I'm fighting this labor charge too.

We decided to just replace the two windows in the sunroom (same transom, just 6' window unit instead of 5' window unit, making the overall window opening 7'). The cost to only replace 3 windows is $5900. I'm not thrilled and I'm hoping that fighting for the reuse of the transoms and the labor charges will bring us down a bit more. In the grand scheme of things this is a small charge in terms of what we're already spending and the look in that sunroom would eat at me forever if I didn't fix it. But I'm angry that the mistake should have been avoided (and therefore already paid for through our mortgage allotment). You live and you learn.

Thank you for all of the advice and feedback.

For our covered porch, we are trying to decide if we should have a screened porch. DH prefers open, I prefer screened, so we're considering automated screens. The covered porch is off of our breakfast nook, so it would be nice to open the doors while entertaining and not worry about bugs. But, we're not sure if it's worth the extra cost.
Thoughts?

I am having same problem, it just ordering windows now for sun room. So glad I saw your post when researching this. I have 9 ' ceilings and getting Anderson windows, the contractor showed me pic and small transom, 7" glass. I had showed him pics off Pinterest, this does not look like those, wonder if you we're starting all over what would you put in, and are you happy with end results? Can you post pics of end results? Thanks. Pam

I am currently struggling with a similar transom questions. I am wondering if you can tell me the SIZE of the transom on the "squat" windows in the image? and the size transom on the french doors in your sun room image?

We are having 10' ceilings with 8 ft door and 1 foot transom. We are going with low profile (thinner molding) transom because we are worried about the "squat" transom effect. I just have not been able to find any pictures of 8 foot door with 1 foot transom.

Any help is appreciated.

9 foot ceilings -- transoms (all of them) are 1' the glass for the transoms above the windows is 7".

Just so you know, with 10' ceilings our architect specced a 6'8" door and an 18" transom and they look nice proportionally. The rest of our doors are 8' when the ceilings are 10 and 7' where the ceilings are 9'

Nikinikinine, thank you so much for the detailed post. I had similar inspiration pics and 9" ceilings. The plans the arch drew up had the exact same window plan as yours. On paper you can't tell what they will look like in real life so I would've had squatty windows, too. Thanks for saving me this headache and $$ hassle. Based on what learned from your post I eliminated the transoms and went with the largest windows I could get. I hope your home turns out great!

kgizo, I am glad it helped you. Hope your windows came out wonderful! In the end I don't mind the squatty transoms or the fact that the windows come 2' off the ground. With three little babies running around it's probably the better option. I was pretty wrapped around the axel over it for a while though! ha!