A large contemporary home in Eastbourne, fitted with slimline windows and doors, comprising a combination of both heritage and modern designs. This project shows the Newlite experience in helping customers combine two distinct styles within the same aluminium system. The installation combines steel look doors with ultra slim 25mm horizontal glazing bars alongside top and side hung casement windows and modern black balcony doors.
The result is a property where the heritage and modern elements work together rather than against each other. The patio doors have the period proportions of traditional steel windows, while the casement windows keep a crisp, contemporary feel with no bars fitted. Both are finished in the same black powder coat, tying the whole house together across every elevation.
The brief from our client was to improve the home with windows having large panes of glass without the visual interruption of mullions and transoms. The doors were specifically requested in the steel look with modern fully glazed doors to the first floor balcony area.
Steel Look Patio Doors
The rear of the property has multiple sets of heritage French doors opening onto the patio and garden. Each set consists of a pair of doors with fixed side panels, all with 25mm horizontal glazing bars running across the full width of the assembly.
These ultra slim 25mm bars are as close as aluminium gets to the proportions of original steel windows. They sit within the glass rather than on top of it, giving a fine, authentic line that catches the light in the same way as period metalwork. Across this many sets of doors, the consistency of the bar layout and the way the horizontal lines run through from door to side panel is what makes the rear elevation look balanced and well planned.
The doors open onto a stone patio with views across the garden. Several sets sit beneath a first floor balcony with metal railings, while others open directly from the living areas at the far end of the house. The ground floor living spaces are filled with natural light. The herringbone oak flooring runs right up to the door thresholds neatly.
Contemporary Kitchen Windows
In the kitchen, we fitted four pane and two pane casement windows in the same black aluminium but without any glazing bars. These are a slimline contemporary design with stepped sashes and ultra slim frames, giving clean views of the garden from the worktop and sink area.
Top hung windows open from the bottom outward, but are hinged at the top. This was a deliberate choice. With windows positioned above a kitchen sink and worktop, side hung openers would require the homeowner to lean across the counter to reach the handle and pull the window in or push it out. Top hung windows solve this. The handle sits at the bottom of the sash, within easy reach, and the window opens outwards without getting in the way of taps, draining boards or anything on the worktop.
It is a practical detail that makes a real difference in daily use, and the kind of advice we give at the design stage to make sure windows work properly in the rooms they are fitted to. The windows also feature slim inline handles that sit neatly alongside the frame rather than projecting into the glassline like traditional handles.
Side Door with Pet Flap
On the side elevation, we fitted a single aluminium door with a toplight and a horizontal glazing bar. The upper section is glazed, and the lower section has a colour matched aluminium panel with an integrated pet flap built in.
It is a small addition, but for a family with pets it makes a big difference to how the home works day to day.
Pet access is something many window companies avoid. It involves ordering a specially cut aluminium panel to accommodate the pet device, and not every installer is comfortable specifying or fitting them. For us, once the customer has chosen their pet flap, we order the panel cut to the exact dimensions needed by the cat or dog flap manufacturer. The pet door then sits properly within an aluminium panel with high insulation values and internal reinforcement for strength. The end result is a colour matched aluminium panel that meets a customer requirement many companies avoid, while keeping the finished appearance clean and consistent with the rest of the door.
Aluminium Balcony Doors
The contemporary but slimline look also extends to the first floor balcony area. Here we provided two maximum width fully glazed doors that allow access to the balcony area.
Closed they let in plenty of natural light with a 1100mm x 2100mm overall size, and open are an excellent source of ventilation. Both doors open out and come with colour-matched hinges and handles.
Heritage and Contemporary in One Installation
What makes this Eastbourne project worth highlighting is how the two styles work together on the same property. The steel look doors with their 25mm glazing bars give the ground floor a period character that suits the scale and proportions of the house. The contemporary casement windows, with their clean frames and no bars, keep the first floor and kitchen areas looking modern and uncluttered.
Both styles use the same aluminium system, the same black powder coated finish, and the same stepped sash profile that echoes the proportions of original metal windows. The difference is simply whether glazing bars are added or not. This gives the homeowner the flexibility to mix heritage and contemporary across the property without any visual conflict between the two.
Slimline Windows and Doors Product Specifications
All windows and doors on this project are thermally insulated aluminium with a polyamide thermal break. The glazing is high performance double glazed sealed units with a soft coat low emissivity coating, warm edge spacer bars and argon gas fill. Doors have toughened safety glass throughout, multipoint locking, high security cylinders and secure handles.
Windows use the latest generation espagnolette hardware, securing the sashes across several locking points and with key locking handles. Trickle ventilation to meet Building Regulations are also provided. The black powder coated finish is professionally applied and backed by a long term colour guarantee.
Aluminium Windows and Doors by Newlite
This whole house project in Eastbourne involved heritage doors, contemporary windows, a side door with pet access and glazing across multiple elevations and floors. It is the kind of project that needs careful planning, accurate surveying and a good understanding of how different window and door styles can be combined within one of the UK’s best-selling and most flexible window and door systems, beautifully manufactured and expertly installed.
Newlite specialise in slimline windows and doors, heritage, industrial, Art Deco and contemporary glazing. We use some of the UK’s best designed and made steel-look windows and doors. We can help you achieve the perfect result to your property renovation project.
