I learned all about dormers during the building process of our current home. When our builder asked us if we wanted to add dormers to a certain wing of our home, I have to admit, I thought, “dom-what?” and memories of college and dorm rooms briefly came to mind. I thought surely dormers and dorms have nothing in common… We opted to add dormers which cost us more, but fast forward to now and that decision has proven to be a very sound investment.

photography by Whit Preston
So what exactly are dormers? If you look at this picture, you’ll notice the three modern windows in the roof and also the picture above, the dormers are those windows in the red like roof. Dormers serve the purpose of bringing in light and air into an existing space.  They are an architectural feature that add character and dimension to a structure’s external appearance. With our home the rooms that now feature  dormers would’ve been dark, dungeon like, and totally depressing if they were “dormer-less.”

It’s very popular to place a bedroom in a dormer.  Even if the space is at an angle, the natural light flooding in like above makes it work. The design of this dormer bedroom is streamlined and simple to maximize on the space. Below are some additional examples of dormer decorating:

a great example from the home of Life&Home at 2012

Does your home have a dormer or dormers? Do share in the comments how you’ve decorated or maybe you’ve received some ideas from this post. I am actually inspired as our dormer spaces have not yet realized their full potential… xx{images: tumblr, pinterest, google}