Design Ideas
Where Ultimate Equals Endless Possibilities
From historically accurate to ultra-contemporary, Marvin Ultimate windows and doors make design dreams a reality. And to get the details right, a trip to the Marvin at 7 Tide Brand Experience Center can help.
To understand what Marvin Ultimate windows and doors are all about, who better to explain it than Marvin brand ambassador, Lisa Massari? Her job, and passion you’ll quickly realize when you work with her, is helping clients fully comprehend the range of Marvin offerings.
“Ultimate has the ultimate number of options, so it's easy for homeowners to remember the name,” Massari said with a laugh. “It can span from very traditional to very contemporary and everything in between.”
By “everything in between,” Massari isn’t exaggerating. From a century-old county courthouse in Arkansas to a contemporary marvel overlooking Puget Sound (more on that below), Ultimate windows and doors are the perfect choice for an array of projects. True customization is one of the hallmarks of Marvin Ultimate.
Helping to Understand All of the Options
But with its nearly endless slate of design options, helping clients truly grasp what’s possible with Ultimate isn’t always easy. That’s where the Marvin at 7 Tide Brand Experience Center comes in. The showroom near Boston Harbor spotlights all that Marvin has to offer, all in a conveniently home-like setting. And that wasn’t by accident.
“We have a dining room, a living room, a lounge, a patio, like what a whole home would have,” Massari said. “All these individual spaces make it easier for clients to visualize the product in their own home.”
For Ultimate in particular, with its nearly endless exterior colors available (via a custom color option), plus interior wood and stain choices, hardware selections, and divided lite or profile patterns to choose from, seeing the options in person can make all the difference. The Marvin at 7 Tide dining room features Ultimate windows with a wide array of these options, which is a lifesaver for Massari and her clients.
“It's really nice to have it all in one room to bounce back and forth between design details such as spacer bar colors or glazing profiles,” Massari said. “It makes it easy having all those options here.”
From Visualization to Reality
Being able to see, touch, and operate the windows isn’t the only place where 7 Tide excels. There’s also visualization. The showroom’s living room features the aptly named visualizer, a whole-wall projection system that takes the clients’ window plans and projects them to scale, right down to grille width and standing height. It’s here that clients can adjust their plans to perfectly meet their design needs and dreams.
“The visualizer is really where the magic happens,” Massari said. “Clients and their design partners get excited. They are really inspired when they can truly see what their specific windows are going to look like.”
The visualizer is really where the magic happens,” Massari said. “Clients and their design partners get excited. They are really inspired when they can truly see what their specific windows are going to look like.”
Lisa Massari
Marvin at 7 Tide Brand Ambassador
Perfection is in the Details
Sometimes one visit to Marvin at 7 Tide just isn’t enough. Massari recalled one couple who came in at least five times to discuss their project.
“They were building their second home on a large lake in New Hampshire,” Massari explained. “The whole project was gorgeous, and they were really focused on the details. They wanted to understand everything and make sure they had all their details perfectly selected.”
Massari continued, describing how the Marvin at 7 Tide experience works for some clients: “People come here with their architectural quotes, and they might not understand every line item, but some clients want to. ‘What is this? What is this like? What are my choices?’ So, we walk them through all of those options, details, color finishes. In this case, it took them five times to really feel good about it. But that was just a great project and it’s what we’re here for. We love to help them dream.”
Marvin Ultimate Project Showcases
Making dreams into reality with nearly endless possibilities is what Marvin Ultimate is all about. Here are six examples, across a vast array of architectural styles and building needs (with a short excerpt from its larger story), explaining why Ultimate was the perfect choice for these projects:
Traditional — Hadley House
Excerpt: Brand-new windows duplicate the dimensions of the original glazing. “Marvin makes fantastic products to match the scale and details that are there,” developer Jeff Novack said. “They custom created 7-foot-tall double-hung windows for this house from their Ultimate products.”
These windows — the same size as the originals — allow an abundance of natural light into the home, which is key when considering the overhang of the home’s large front porch.
This distribution of light not only influenced the size of the windows but the home’s overall design, as builder Paul Jackson explained, “If you notice as you go higher in the house, the windows get a little smaller. And then on the top floor, they're very small, dormers only basically. But the main living spaces, for the families that built these places, they wanted that natural light in the house.”
More About the Hadley House
Revival — Santa Fe Pueblo-Style
Excerpt: During golden hour, honey-hued light pours through the Ultimate Sliding doors into the great room. Echoing her globally informed aesthetic, homeowner and designer Jules Moore opted for a bronze finish that’s equally timeless and transportive. “I wanted a rich bronze and I wanted to see wood grain. And Marvin was the only one to present exactly what I wanted,” she said. To meet her vision, she selected an espresso stain on the wood interiors, which Marvin handled before sending the windows and doors to Santa Fe.
More About the this Pueblo-Style Home
Contemporary — Bayview
Excerpt: “We chose a bronze exterior for the Marvin windows,” said architect Scott Landry. “Wood clad, the warmth of the wood, but also the insulation values of the wood was a huge consideration for this project. We get huge temperature swings pretty routinely, so that gives opportunities, you know, flushing out the house, capturing some cool ocean air, keeping that in the house, but yeah, you're reliant upon well-performing windows like Marvin.”
“Also, we needed a lot of custom shapes. These are huge windows, we wanted them to be structurally sound. We have two gable sides to this room. Most of these were existing openings before that we had to fit a new window and a lot of times a new window style.”
More About the the Bayview Project
Ultra-Contemporary / Minimalist — Marrowstone Island
Excerpt: Those main living-space windows, 12-foot Marvin Ultimate Direct Glaze windows situated atop 3-foot units, are a sight to behold from inside the house. Trimmed entirely in show-stopping Douglas Fir, they’re warm, soothing, and provide an inviting radiance—often in contrast to the gray-green surroundings outside.
“We wanted the house to feel very warm, and particularly through the winter months when it's cold, cloudy, and rainy,” architect Dan Shipley said.
More About the Marrowstone Island Home
Historic — Mississippi County Courthouse
Excerpt: The original courthouse windows in question were inswing casement units, complete with an ornate top grille design. Matching those historic details was up to the Marvin team.
When a one-for-one replacement of the original inswing casement windows proved to be too costly for the project budget, an elegant solution was found: a fixed-sash double hung. The double hung accomplished the same look of the originals, complete with the same deep jamb, brick mould, and eye-catching top grilles, but at a fraction of the cost of the inswing windows.
More About the Mississippi County Courthouse
Commercial — Christ Episcopal Church
Excerpt: After being briefed on the project, and hearing about the church’s specific needs, [the team] considered a few solutions. But one specific window design seemed perfect for the parish hall: Marvin Ultimate Venting Picture windows. The design provides the look and security of a stationary picture window with an added benefit: air flow through a patented, hidden screen system.
More About Christ Episcopal Church
Get the Latest
From before-and-after transformations to expert tips and how-tos, we’ve got tons of inspiration waiting for you.
%3Afill(transparent)&w=3840&q=75)