Whilst there is no accounting for taste, particularly when it comes to interior design, a recent opinion piece that collected the views of interior designers on solid wooden shutters made some claims about the popular louvred shutter design that seemed to be misinformed.

The article in Homes & Gardens has a lot of interesting viewpoints that explore the various practical and aesthetic benefits of shutters, ultimately concluding, as we do, that shutters are a “timeless fixture”, there were some criticisms that merit discussion to see if there are any weight to them.

One measured response argued that whilst they are “classic”, it is important to consider where they are being placed to ensure you let as much light in.

Another designer thought they were perfectly fine outside of the name, but another more critical voice was emphatic in her dislike of shutters.

She claimed that they should only be used in warmer regions, specifically citing Florida and Hawaii, felt they looked out of place anywhere else, were bulky and imposing in design and blocked a lot of light.

It is difficult to know where the tropical climate argument comes from outside of history. Wooden shutters have been used to keep heat in and control light for centuries before the plantation shutter. They also have a lot of colour options for harmonising with different design styles.

The claim that they are bulky in design can depend on the shutters in question, but if anything they tend to be the exact opposite. They are minimalist, easy to operate, easy to open and close entirely if you like and far from imposing. 

They also offer a fantastic level of light control, with a comfortable level of light just a simple tug of the louvre away, with versatility for a wide range of styles.

Ultimately that control, freedom and flexibility are why they have been in style for so long and will likely continue to be a timeless touch.

Much has been said about the growth of panel shutters as a design trend, with louvred shutters in particular providing an elegant, hard-wearing alternative to Venetian blinds or curtains.

A key question for many homeowners hasn’t been whether or not to get them but whether they should be fitted to the inside or the outside of the window frame.

Ultimately, the right answer depends on the type of window, the type of shutter and the type of house, but there are certainly ways to make interior or exterior shutters work for your home.

Exterior shutters with louvres are often added as a rustic feature, particularly for coastal cottages to add to the breezy seaside aesthetic. They also serve as an effective security system by locking off access to the window frame at night and can more effectively protect the house from stormy weather.

The big problem with exterior shutters is that they are very architecture-dependent, and it is much easier to create a stylistic clash with shutters fitted to the outside than to the inside.

If you have a rustic, more traditional-looking home that would suit panel shutters or a Mediterranean-style home that would benefit from outdoor louvred shutters, then external shutters are the way to go. 

A more conventional suburban semi-detached might look a bit out of place unless you pick a perfect combination of styles and colours.

As well as this, external shutters require a lot more maintenance to protect against storm damage.

By contrast, internal shutters are relatively low-maintenance, there are a huge number of options for colours, styles, fixtures and fittings, they can more easily fit an interior design style than external architecture, and the lack of risk of them being damaged by the rain means you have more options for materials.

They also help to keep the home more effectively insulated.

What often surprises people looking to install solid wood shutters onto their windows is just how many practical benefits come with the beautiful aesthetics.

Alongside rather obvious benefits like improving the curb appeal of a house, plantation shutters are excellent at controlling light into a room and thus making it more comfortable, more intimate and more private. 

As well as this, wooden shutters are surprisingly good insulators that keep a room at the right temperature, either by keeping unwanted heat out on hot summer days or locking it in when the mercury drops.

However, one question that is sometimes asked is whether it can help make your home more secure, and whilst plantation shutters will not bring the high-security ratings a set of metal roller shutters would, louvred shutters can add an extra layer of security that you might not expect.

Some shutters can be locked and cannot be easily removed from the outside due to being attached to the window frame, providing a barrier that an intruder would have to take the time to noisily break their way through.

Burglars are typically opportunists, so every additional second needed to break in adds an extra risk that they might get caught, and so this added physical layer can be the difference between a successful smash and grab and prison time.

However, its greatest security benefit is how successfully it acts as a deterrent. Whilst plantation shutters are not designed necessarily with security in mind, they create a lot of unknowns for potential intruders that will often make them reconsider a particular target.

Louvred shutters can be open enough to let light in but still provide enough privacy that a burglar cannot easily look into the room without suspicion, and leaving them slightly open can create the impression that someone is in the home at all times.

If you want a light, beautiful window covering, there are few choices that have become more popular than the louvred wooden shutter.

Also known as plantation shutters, louvred shutters have become the look of the moment, because they provide a particularly bright addition to a room and allow for both carefully controlled privacy and a lot of natural light.

Because they are primarily associated with quite warm, summery designs they tend to be sold either with a wood treatment to bring out the natural grain of the solid wood, white or a very light off-white or neutral shade such as beige.

Because a lot of modern interior designs prioritise lighter shades to create lighter, airier looks, a lot of people tend to stick to white to complete that contemporary look, but if you want to create a style that stands out, there is absolutely no reason why you cannot opt for a different colour to your shutters.

Whilst the only practical limit is your imagination, here are some colours other than white that look great on plantation shutters.

 

Connecting The Inside To The Outside

For rooms that either have a design inspired by nature or link the interior and exterior spaces of the home, natural shades and earthy tones such as blues and greens can be exceptionally popular and effective, particularly in combination with other natural textures and greenery.

 

A Striking Focal Point

White shutters tend to be relatively unobtrusive, which helps them to fit into practically any potential design concept.

Using a bold colour choice such as yellow, purple or pink immediately draws the eye and often causes a reflective contrast into the room itself. 

Typically, if you are willing to be more minimalist with the rest of a room’s design, using bold shutters can make it stand out stylistically.

 

A Richer Ambience

By contrast, black, dark grey, charcoal and richer shades create a darker, more elegant ambience, particularly when used in contrast to a lighter colour scheme.

Desire is often a strong enough motivation to have beautiful wooden shutters fitted to your home. 

They often brighten the look of a home both inside and out, and seeing them revitalise a nearby property can be enough of an incentive to get them fitted.

However, beautiful, timeless aesthetics aside, sometimes louvred or solid shutters are not merely desirable but are necessary, helping to fix fundamental issues with a home’s design and improving the quality of life for the people living in it.

Here are some reasons why you may need shutters in your home.

 

If You Feel Exposed In Your Own Home

Privacy is a fundamental need for so many of us. If we feel we are being watched we can never truly feel comfortable, which is a significant problem if you feel that way in your own home.

Closing the curtains is somewhat of a blunt way to solve the problem, but louvres can allow for natural light to fill the room without feeling like neighbours and passers-by can see into your house.

 

If You Struggle With Temperature Control

Insulation is a common issue with many older homes, particularly around windows, leading to certain places getting too warm in the summer and too cold in winter.

Wood, as a natural insulator, is very good at helping to reduce heat loss compared to curtains.

 

If You Live Near A Busy Road

Traffic, passers-by and noise from nearby buildings can ruin quiet days and lead to sleepless nights. However, with wood being not only a good heat insulator but an excellent sound insulator, shutters can help provide a better night’s sleep.

 

If You Don’t Want To Clean Your Curtains

Cleaning curtains is a lengthy, awkward process that often requires a stepladder, a large washing machine and considerable time with an exposed window. Sometimes curtains need to be professionally cleaned, which is both more expensive and more time-consuming.

Wooden shutters, by contrast, can be easily and simply wiped clean and require almost no maintenance to take care of, saving time, energy, money and stress in the process.

If you have shutters or blinds in your current windows, you may have chosen them based on a range of factors that made these the best choice for your home.

However, if you are moving, that choice will need to be made again – and it may be that what you have now is not necessarily the best option.

For that reason, it makes sense to look carefully at how things may differ in your new property, and talk to us about what may work best for you.

For example, you may have full-height window shutters, which make a simple and neat solution for a tall window, such as those commonly found in Regency buildings, of which Brighton has many.

However, if you are moving somewhere else in the city or county, you might be in a very different kind of house, such as a modern semi, where the window sizes and shapes don’t suit such a design. Alternatively, you might be moving in the opposite direction and need something for taller and narrower windows.

Indeed, you might want to make this part of a wider Regency-themed interior design project, where everything matches up stylistically.

Another factor may be the angles at which the windows are aligned. For example, a south-facing window will capture the sun all year, which means sometimes you might want to shutter out the glare, whereas a north-facing window will only capture it on summer evenings when the sun is low.

Equally, it could be that you decide to switch to blinds that can be adjusted so they are partially open, keeping out the worst of the bright summer illumination while letting in plenty of light. How much light is allowed in will also depend on the size of the window and whether or not the sun is blocked by outside objects from trees and hedges to buildings.

These factors are why a ‘one size fits all’ approach is never the wisest. Whatever you have done with the windows in your current home, you will need to look at everything afresh.

Window dressing is so often seen as a binary choice; you either have solid wood shutters, blinds or curtains, with no room for a mix of materials and styles.

There can be some cases where a combination does not work; Venetian blinds and plantation shutters are somewhat redundant even if they could be practically fitted to the same window.

However, the belief that you have to choose between curtains or shutters is simply not the case, and there are a lot of reasons why you might want to have both, especially in bedrooms and in rooms with large windows.

Curtains, particularly thick luxury curtains, look fantastic as a frame for windows and if they are made from the right material and with a cut and style that suits the window, are a very effective way of blocking out light when they are closed.

The problem is that this is largely a binary choice; either the curtains are closed and block out all light, or they let in direct natural light, which can be uncomfortable on a particularly bright day and lead to the rather unusual tendency for some people to keep their curtains closed to avoid the glare of the sun.

This can be particularly frustrating for bedroom windows that face south or east, as the glare from the sun can be uncomfortable for someone who has just woken up

One solution is to have another set of curtains made of a thicker material that can be opened separately, but this can be unwieldy to use and make a window frame look disorganised.  

A more effective solution, therefore, is to use louvred shutters such as those found in plantation shutters to control the amount of light entering the room.

They could be set in the evening to be closed entirely or open to provide a comfortable level of light before the curtains are closed.

Over the past few years, there has been a growing trend towards more solid window covers, away from curtains and even blinds in favour of solid wood shutters with adjustable louvres.

These shutter systems are popular because they look fantastic, fit a wide range of different interior design styles, at once fit traditional and modern architectural aesthetics and are easy to maintain and clean.

Because of this, a lot of homeowners are enquiring about potentially getting them installed, either for their own sakes or to potentially help improve the curb appeal of their home. 

However, whilst in many conventional homes it is clear that they can be fitted and provide an immediate benefit, not all homes are necessarily conventionally designed.

Some have particularly long or wide windows, whilst others have strange shapes that do not necessarily match the square or oblong footprint of a conventional louvred shutter system.

These include windows that have arches or semicircular sunbursts, windows with triangular slopes or even windows that are rounded, hexagonal or octagonal, completely in defiance of the typical quadrilateral window shape.

The typical solution in all of these cases is to fit curtains instead, since ultimately the shape does not matter, but this is not always an elegant solution and if your heart is set on blinds and shutters, bespoke shutters are very much an option.

These can come in a variety of forms. The first and most complex is to have custom-designed louvres that match the shape of your window. These are especially important for round or uniquely polygonal windows, but it is also not the only option.

The simplest option for people with arches or other unconventional parts to their windows is to opt for cafe-style shutters that only cover the square or rectangular part of the window, which are fantastic if the ultimate goal is privacy rather than light control.

Finally, there are several bespoke choices such as solid panels to cover the rounded parts of the window and plantation shutters for the rest, and an expert will be happy to discuss your needs and options.

With much of Britain being blanketed in snow this month, now may seem a strange time to be thinking about a world getting warmer. But to focus on a few flurries in what is, after all, the middle of winter to the exclusion of all other evidence would be highly unwise.

Although the record-breaking global average temperature in 2023 may not be felt just now, one only has to go back over the past few weeks to recall some severe storms, which are now hitting the UK (and elsewhere) with greater frequency than historical norms.

However, you don’t need to be one of those unfortunate to have their home flooded to appreciate that residential properties will need to change to accommodate changes to the climate. That can include the window coverings you use.

Solid wood shutters can be a great option for a changing climate for several reasons. Firstly, the fact wood has great insulating qualities means they are ideal for dealing with the cold days we can still have: Brighton has not suddenly become Barbados. This can also keep out any draughts that sneak through the windows or any flaws around them.

At the same time, the fact that shutters can keep out the hot sun is something that will be useful in any summer, but even more so as they get hotter in the south of England. If days at or close to 40 C are to become the norm, it makes sense to have shutters, which were first popularised in southern Europe partly because they can keep homes cool in the heat.

Finally, the wood itself is an important consideration. If we want to care about the environment going forward, the use of organic materials without embedded carbon is a must.

The key with wood, of course, is it is organic and, provided it comes from sustainable forests, its use becomes not just a low-carbon option, but also encourages more forestry, helping suck more carbon from the air by the most natural means.

For all these reasons, going for wooden shutters is a great choice for a changing climate.

Typically, when people are looking for beautiful wooden shutters, the aim is to renovate the appearance of their home and make it a more pleasant place to spend a lot of time.

After all, for many people, their home is their sanctuary and where they spend the overwhelming majority of their free time, so making it look beautiful and feel comfortable is essential largely for its own sake.

However, for people hoping to move home and navigate the property market, could plantation shutters potentially help boost the value of their home more than the cost of fitting them?

The answer, rather surprisingly, is yes, albeit in somewhat subtle ways besides the obvious appeal shutters have for a range of different interior design styles. Shutters fit a lot of different housing modes and at the front of the house boost kerb appeal. 

One part of this is a boost to potential light levels; because they are far better suited to adjusting the level of natural light to provide both additional privacy and better lighting, both of which are not only highly prioritised and prized by potential buyers but are also relatively subjective.

A common selling trick is to use neutral, light-coloured walls and mirrors parallel to the windows in order to reflect as much natural light around the room to increase its perceived space, something shutters are very useful at helping with.

As well as this, shutters improve the security of the windows by providing an additional solid layer of security as well as the added perception of security that comes from a more open and solid deterrent to window entry. With a potential buyer, perception is everything.

Finally, although this might not always be an immediately accessible benefit, shutters improve insulation, which can improve energy efficiency statistics that can make a home more viable to some buyers.