Lights Divided, Truly And Otherwise

It should be understood that conserving old windows is the “greenest” option: they are endlessly repairable and easy to upgrade for energy effciency and comfort. For those buying new windows, find good news in recent aesthetic improvements.

- Mary Ellen Polson

I treasure the few original single pane casement and double-hung windows that remain in my 80-year-old rustic cottage. But without the old, hand built, wooden storm windows to create effective double glazing (trapping insulating air in-between), I’d be awfully cold in winter. The cottage came with a few not-so-sturdy replacement windows that long ago outlived their usefulness. They don’t match other windows in the house, and they aren’t double-glazed.

Replacement options, in my case, range from real divided-light windows with multiple, separate panes of glass to simulated divided lights, an increasingly popular option for windows since they were introduced in the last decades of the 20th century. The latest versions of simulated dividers are much more realistic than early snap-in or removable grille versions, which lacked depth and were poorly proportioned, especially in relation to historical windows.

SIMULATED DIVIDED LIGHTS