Window & Door Grids
Get creative. Doors and windows as works of art. Imagine the morning sunlight gently entering a room. As the light warms your room, you notice a delightful mosaic of light and shadows reflecting on the wall—a reflection of the grid design you’ve chosen for your windows or patio door.
Door and window grids are a distinctive way to liven up the look of your home, whether you’re admiring it from the inside or out. Grids can make a window or door match a historical period or architectural style. They can also turn a large open pane into something extraordinary.
Grid Types
The types of door and window grids available to you will depend on the manufacturer and the material of the door or window (i.e., vinyl, aluminum, fiberglass). You can classify grids based on where they’re placed on the pane (between the two panes of insulated glass, on the exterior glass or on the interior glass). Door and window grids positioned between the panes make the window easiest to clean, though interior and exterior grids usually are designed as “snap-in grids” that can be removed and reattached easily and quickly. The profile of a grid can sometimes be shaped flat while other times it is sculptured.
Using Grids to Create Lites
Originally, grids were used as a way to both create visual interest in a window or door and to hold the various individual panes (lites) that made up that window or door. With insulated glass, it’s not only more cost-effective, to simulate a divided pane, it’s also easier to clean.
True Divided Lites
Individual panes of glass are held together with built-in muntin grids to accurately recreate the look of colonial-era homes.
Simulated Divided Lites (Option A)
To create a realistic look of divided lites from the interior perspective only, you can use a grid on the interior side of the window in combination with a grid between the panes.
Simulated Divided Lites (Option B)
To create a realistic effect of divided lites from the exterior perspective only, you can use a grid on the exterior side of the window in combination with a grid between the panes.
Grids Between the Glass
You also can just rely on a grid between the panes to simulate the look of lites. From a close-up perspective, you lose the dimensional effect and look of a physical grid on the outside of the pane, but retain the overall look of divided lites.