A Two Lite V Bay is a Bay made of two windows rather than three. They meet at a point in the middle, so there is no center pane at all — the frame turns once and comes back to the wall.
“Two lite” is two lights, which is the trade’s word for a pane of glass. The V is what the shape makes if you look down on it from above. It is the only Bay in the set with no flat face, and that is the whole character of it.
Three lights. A flat one across the front, an angled return either side, and a square shelf under it.
Two lights. The flat one is gone, so the frame turns once and the sill comes to a point.
Deleting the center light is what makes this shape fit a narrower wall than a Bay or a Bow needs. All six Bay and Bow shapes are drawn out together, with the size ranges we build to and what drives the cost.
Two things usually decide it. The first is width: a Bay or a Bow has to carry three or more lights, and there is not always the wall for that. A V Bay makes the same move in less of it.
The second is what you want the projection to do. A Bay or a Box Bay gives you a flat face and a shelf to put something on. A V Bay gives you neither — it comes to a point — so it reads as a break in the elevation rather than a place to sit. If the reason for the window is the view out and the shape of the wall, that is often the better answer. If the reason is a window seat, it is not.
Either way it is still a Bay, and going into a wall that carries load it needs the same header and the same care as any other. One of ours is photographed step by step — a Hat Box rather than a V, but the structural work is the part they share.
A Bay made of two windows instead of three. They meet at a point in the middle, so the frame turns once and comes straight back to the wall. "Two lite" means two lights — the trade word for a pane of glass — and the V is the shape it makes looking down on it from above.
A normal Bay has three windows: a flat one across the front with an angled return on either side. A V Bay deletes the flat one. That leaves no center pane and no flat face, so there is no square shelf across the front — the sill comes to a point where the two lights meet.
Usually width. A Bay or a Bow needs enough wall to carry three or more lights, and a V Bay makes the same gesture in less of it. It also projects to a point rather than a face, which suits a wall you want to break up rather than one you want to sit in.
If it goes 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, and the projection has to be carried. That is true of every shape in the set, not this one in particular.
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