McMansions 101: Dormers
No, a dormer is not someone who lives in a dorm. Basically, a dormer is a structure that projects from the roof mass and has its own roof, windows, and sometimes walls.
Dormers can be placed into three structural categories: roof dormer, wall dormer, and inset dormer.
The walls of a dormer are often referred to as “cheek” walls by builders. The windows in a dormer are commonly referred to as “glazing.” Dormers have the same roofing styles and variety as regular roofs:
A wall dormer always has a “cheek” wall. This is what distinguishes it from a cross gable, which never has a “cheek” wall.
You’d think that dormers would be pretty simple, right? Wrong. Everybody fouls them up miserably each time. In fact, it was so difficult for me to find “good” examples from the last 36 years, that most of the “good” examples are New Traditional Colonial Revival or Georgian houses because they are probably the hardest to foul up.
The guidelines for dormer dos and don’ts are so simple, but apparently not simple enough:
Dormer Dos:
1.) Dormers should always be proportional to the mass of the roof and the masses of the facade walls.
2.) Dormers should be vertically aligned to the windows on the front elevation.
3.) Multiple dormers should be spaced evenly. Too many dormers results in a cluttered roofline, too few makes them look like an afterthought.
4.) Dormers should be the same architectural style and should use the same materials as the rest of the elevation.
Without further ado, let’s begin:
Dormer Do #1: Dormers should always be proportional to the mass of the roof and the mass of the facade.
Literally 90% of dormer fails involve size. The dormers should never obfuscate the roof, nor overpower the lower stories. Your eye shouldn’t immediately go straight to the dormers. It should (arguably) go to the front entrance.
Here are some examples of well-proportioned dormers:
When this rule is broken, it’s broken in one of two ways: the dormers are too big or too tall for the roof/house, or they are too small or short.
Dormer Don’t #1: Dormers are too big
The dormers in this photo completely dominate this house. Aside from the bay window, they are the tallest windows on the entire elevation. Your eye goes WHAM! TO THE DORMERS! (right in the kisser)
Dormer Don’t #2: Dormers are too tall
This house is a total National Travesty™ because it was so damn close to being a lovely New Traditional. Those dormers are obnoxiously tall - they’re taller than the 2nd story wall itself! This house, with it’s low-pitched roof really shouldn’t have dormers at all, and yet, here we are.
Dormer Don’t #3: Dormers are too small
Often, when dormers are too small, they can be removed from the facade and the house will not suffer an great architectural loss. This is not always the case, but dormers are more likely to be too large than they are too small.
Like, that dormer really doesn’t need to be there. It adds nothing and only draws attention to that monstrous roofline. Though, on the more nihilistic side, this McMansion is already bad enough, what’s one more mistake?
Dormer Don’t #4: Dormers are too short
This is probably the rarest of the rule one rulebreakers, but it does exist. Dormers that appear too short are usually hipped or shed dormers, and changing their roofline to a gabled form often remedies the problem.
Also is it just me or does this house look like a pissed off frog?
Dormer Do #2: Dormers should be vertically aligned to windows on the lower stories
This seems like common sense, because it is. Either the dormers should be aligned to the windows on the top-most story, or they should alternate with them (see the second picture under the last rule.)
But, alas: here’s Dormer Don’t #4:
Ok, but how does that even happen? Even if this pic was taken at a slight angle, those lines still shouldn’t be that off.
Dormer Do #3: Multiple dormers should be spaced evenly, and having too few or too many of them should be avoided.
We can all see in the previous examples, what it looks like when dormers are spaced evenly and when they are…not.
But let’s get to the good stuff: Too many dormers, and too few.
Dormer Don’t #5: Too many dormers
Is there some kind of assumption somewhere that more dormers = more wealth?? Because I would like to take a moment and publicly attest that this is not the case.
Now my favorite part: THE AFTERTHOUGHT DORMER
What is the afterthought dormer? When it appears that whoever designed the house had a conversation at some point that sounded something like: “whatever, just, like, put a dormer there.”
This is also known as Dormer Don’t #6: Too few dormers
What am I talking about?
etc.
Finally, the last rule:
Dormer Do #4: Dormers should be the same architectural style and should use the same materials as the rest of the elevation.
An addendum to this rule is, that, for the most part, dormers should also be the same size/style as each other.
Well, that’s all I can take for today. My fragile soul needs a brief reprieve.
Be sure to stick around for Thursday’s Certified Dank McMansion of the Week and Sunday’s McMansions 101: Eclecticism!
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Copyright Disclaimer: Images in this posts are screenshots from real estate aggregate Zillow.com and are used in this post for the purposes of education, satire, and parody, consistent with 17 USC §107.