They’re not, but why shouldn’t they be?
Shed dormers are a trait of the American style houses, but if you think about their benefits, it won’t be such a bad idea for us to embrace them in Ireland too.
What is a shed dormer? It’s an addition to an attic or a cockloft that expands the living space both in height and width. It’s eave line will be parallel to the roof’s eave line, thus offering a lot of headroom and a lot of light by installing larger windows.
Speaking of windows, the thing we know all about, a shed dormer can be equipped with different types of windows, according to the current style of your house or depending on the style you plan to build it in. But we must point out that shed dormers are a characteristic more of traditional, Victorian or Tudor houses, with a more abrupt roof, and these styles go best with sash windows. Very often these attics are not used as a room, but when homeowners decide to use them as such, shed dormers are a great way to bring light inside. Much better than skylights which can be more difficult to manoeuvre if they can be opened and are not fixed.
So the two main benefits of shed dormers are the windows that will make it comfortable to let air and light in, and the extra headroom. Oh, and they also can create more space if the shed dormer is larger and can be stretched out more. Also if you add two of them, you’ll get a bigger wall plan to create a cosy nook in front of the window.
Please view the gallery in the left for more inspiration.
