A Hat Box Bay is a Box Bay with ears. The frame carries out past the glazing at both ends, at the front of the unit, and those ears are glazed too — so there are windows in the flanks as well as across the front.
Everything else is a Box Bay. Square returns rather than angled ones, the deepest shelf of any Bay, and a flat roof over the top. The ears are the whole difference, and they are why it is worth knowing the name — ask for a Box Bay and you will not get them.
More glazing without more projection. If the room wants light rather than shelf, that is the trade the ears make. All eight Bay and Bow shapes are illustrated together, with the size ranges we build to.
This Hat Box Bay unit was installed into a second-floor bedroom wall that had only a single small Double-Hung window in the wall with no wider opening for anything larger — so the wall was opened up with new support Header, framed and completely installed and cleaned up in only two days.
The whole job is photographed step by step — cutting the opening, the engineered header, the steel cable that carries the projection, and the seat at the end of it.
A Box Bay with ears. The frame carries out past the glazing at both ends, at the front of the unit, and those ears are glazed as well — so you get windows in the flanks on top of the ones across the front. Everything else about it is a Box Bay: square returns, a deep shelf, a flat roof over the top.
Only in the ears. A plain Box Bay stops at its returns. A Hat Box carries the frame out past them and puts glass in the extra width, which widens the opening it needs and adds glazing without adding projection. If you want more light rather than more shelf, that is the difference that matters.
If it is going into a wall that carries load, yes — the same as any Bay. The opening interrupts the studs holding the weight above, so a header has to span it and bear on framing at each end. We photographed exactly that on one Hat Box job, including the steel cable that carries the projection back to the header.
Yes, and that is the more involved version of the job. The wall is opened, headed and re-sided around the new unit. The Hat Box we photographed went into a second-floor bedroom wall that had one small window in it and no opening for anything larger.
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