Hello,

Our house was built in the late 60s. We're doing a complete renovation and need to replace the windows (including adding two new ones as we convert an internal garage).

But I can't figure out a) how we should configure the windows in the front elevation and b) what type of windows we should go for.

Here's the house. The front of the house that faces the street (without the front door) is the one I can't figure out.

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(I know it's doesn't look very MCM from these pics - the top floor was an extension in the 70s, but the rest of the house is quite midcentury - big sloping ceiling, wood cladding, etc)

This is the current window configuration - the middle floor windows are floor to ceiling with 3 sort of wooden battens across them at the bottom, and shaded glass in between. I don't understand why the top windows are mirror image, and the middle floor aren't (was it just a mistake?!)
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This is what was originally proposed - keeping the glazing division but losing the battens. But one window company mentioned the large pane at the bottom of the windows on the middle floor looked a bit weird and not on purpose.
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This was a second iteration - losing the current configuration and dividing up the glazing differently on the mid and top floor. These are bedrooms, with bathrooms in the middle. We've also done the bottom two floors mirror-image windows, to match the top floor.
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The red windows would be fixed, the green opening, (orange TBC). We need as much opening as possible on the top floor as these are the only windows in those rooms and it gets very hot (due to a huge wall of south facing windows on the mid to top floor). The middle floor is less of an issue as those rooms have side windows which should create a cross breeze. The ground floor is quite cool as partially underground. From building regs, the top floor opening is actually too low for all windows to open, so we'd need restrictors on the end ones that we hope to open.

The things we are struggling with are:

...Which configuration is best suited to a mid century house like this?

...Or, which configuration looks best irrespective of it being a mid century house?

...Are we right to go mirror image, or does it look weird? (it looks weird to me now, but my eyes are broken from looking at windows)

And finally, we're really struggling with materials:

We were thinking of getting alu clad timber windows like Velfac, the external frame dark grey, and internally lacquered timber. But we might not be able to afford it as it's at least and extra 10k.
Second choice is all alu, inside and out.
Third choice could be something cheaper - but UPVC feels like a bad fit with the house.

The windows companies are doing a really hard sell on the alu clad timber, saying alu will be obsolete in a few years because they aren't efficient enough and the rooms will be cold. But we are wondering:

- Is alu really all that bad?!

- Is grey (to match the fake slate tiles up at the top, and some bits of grey in the bricks) a good idea externally? And would that actually be quite nice as a sort of plain 'picture-frame' for the windows indoors?

- Could timber on the inside also create additional issues around having too many types of wood not quite matching (given we hope to have oak herringbone floors, flush oak doors, oak skirting and architrave, and then the stairs and ceiling are all a different, darker kind of wood on top of that)

Any thoughts SO VERY welcome on materials and styling. I'm currently window-blind.

THANKS

(I posted a while ago on Houzz.com and was recommended to ask on Houzz.co.uk, so here I am!)

From the original drawings - hopefully us, after we've finished the reno!

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