Full height shutters are among the options you might consider. It is worth taking into account their specific qualities and attributes and then deciding whether these fit your desires better than any other.

Among the pros of full height shutters are:

•       Lots of flexibility over how much light comes in, as they can cover the window fully to keep all the light out, while allowing you to control how much comes in through operating each panel on its own.
•       They can be tailored to fit any window shape
•       They improve security, not least by making it harder to see what is inside a room from the outside

The cons include:

•       Full height shutters are not usually ideal for non-recessed windows
•       Place more strain on hinges than tier-on-tier shutters
•       Can be more complex to design

What Are The Best Alternatives To Full-Height Shutters?

As well as tier-on-tier shutters, cafe shutters can sometimes be a good alternative.

Overall, however, full height shutters are, by definition, very well suited to tall windows. The key difference between these and half-height or café-style shutters is that they cover the whole window, whereas café-style shutters only cover the lower half.

This may be particularly pertinent if you have very tall windows, as, for example, Regency buildings in Brighton and Hove tend to do.

If you like some light flowing in freely to your home, especially in the summer months when the sun is higher in the sky, cafe-style shutters are better. But if you want to be able to shut everything out and maintain security while maximising insulation, go for the full height option.

There are several different kinds of shutters you can choose from:

•       Full height shutters
•       Half height shutters
•       Café-style shutters
•       Solid panel shutters

Each of these has different attributes, which means that some windows will be better suited to one style than another. This is worth considering if you are interested in having full height window shutters fitted.

Full height shutters are versatile and can be used in different window styles, but they are best used in large windows, as this is where the fact that they cover the full space becomes more useful.

This is because if you have a large window, being able to cover it fully is necessary to protect your privacy, while at the same time being able to pull the shutters up means you can get a very clear panoramic view not afforded by small windows with a narrow field of vision.

Such large windows might be bay windows, particularly tall windows, or French doors.

Why Do Full Height Shutters Suit Regency Buildings?

There are many different homes in and around Brighton that might benefit from full height shutters, from modern semis to traditional Regency properties.

In the latter case, tall sash windows were a key feature of the architectural style, especially from 1790 to 1830. It was a means of expressing affluence that was no longer subject to the 17th-century window tax that allegedly spawned the term ‘daylight robbery’.

Not everyone who lives in Regency buildings today is rich, but if you have a window like this, you are certainly blessed with lots of daylight that you wouldn’t want to be robbed of. With full-height window shutters, it will be all yours to enjoy, or to shut out as and when you wish.

One question that is sometimes asked about shutters, particularly solid wood or louvred designs, is whether they can help keep a home more secure.

Security shutters absolutely exist, both in the familiar metal rolling shutter form commonly used to secure places of business and even in the form of specially designed plantation shutters made from composite materials and featuring advanced locking systems.

If you want to buy graded and rated plantation shutters, they do exist. However, even conventional wooden shutters can provide some passive security, even if they are not necessarily a rated security system.

The most powerful weapon in a home security system is psychology, and shutters provide a sense of privacy and security that disincentivises an opportunistic burglar.

Most burglaries are smash-and-grab affairs that take less than ten minutes from entry to exit, often with significant research, scouting and casing to ensure that the burglary is worth the risk.

Anything that could potentially delay a burglar or suggest that a homeowner is at least mildly conscientious about their home security could make committing the crime not worth the risk.

As the Metropolitan Police put it, burglars will only target homes they think will contain valuables, and if they cannot see any obvious signs of anything, they will move away.

Beyond this, blinds and shutters can act as a frustrating physical barrier, particularly if there is a latch or lock on the inside that needs to be forced open manually.

Whilst a set of shutters is no substitute for secure window and door locks, they can provide enough of a disincentive to make a home less of a target.

For some, this has been great news, especially in a place like Brighton, where some will have needed little prompting to head to the beach, while others will have enjoyed the early-season cricket at Hove or gone for a walk on the Downs.

However, for those not able to spend their days outside in the sun, the extra sunlight can be a problem at times. Dazzling glare can be distracting, making it harder to see laptops for those who are working instead of out enjoying themselves, or who simply want to do the housework without being blinded.

The need to keep out the sun is why shutters were first used in southern Europe, where the Mediterranean climate made sunny days the norm. It may be that climate change will make southern England more like that in years to come – if it isn’t already.

A great option for your windows is full height shutter blinds. This is because they offer the most comprehensive means of keeping the glare of the bright sun out of the room, which will be particularly useful when the window faces south.

In winter, when the sun is low in the sky, these may not be needed higher up the window, but you can be sure they will be in the summer months – and the longest, lightest days of the year, when the sun rises to nearly 63 degrees in the sky, will occur next month.

Shutter blinds of this type are especially useful when you have tall windows, which is the case for many of the Regency buildings in Brighton, although other buildings have large windows too.

You may need such shutters less in smaller windows, or when the windows do not face the midday sun. But when the full glare is beaming into the room and making it hard to see what you are doing, the capacity to fully block it out is invaluable.

Not everyone will go for full height shutters, of course, as some may prefer split shutters for a more flexible approach. But there are other questions too, such as what colour they should be painted.

This is an important question in a place like Brighton. If you do live in a Regency building, the outside colour scheme is uniformly white, which means any shutters that are not – at least on the outward-facing side – would stick out like a sore thumb.

However, you do have some options to consider. For example, you may want to have insides that are coloured in keeping with either the latest fashion or the colour scheme you have chosen for the room.

These are two things that may differ markedly. What is fashionable in any given year is a fickle matter, not least when some will follow prompts such as Pantone’s annual Colour of the Year, which in 2024 is a shade of pink known as Peach Fuzz. Last year was a darker pink called Viva Magneta.

All that may suit someone who loves pink. But other years will bring very different Pantone colours of the year. 2022 brought a bluebell-coloured Very Peri, one of many blues to feature in recent years. 2021 brought grey and yellow, while 2013 and 2017 were shades of green.

Rather than repainting your shutters every year, a better idea might be to choose a hue that fits well with the internal décor. After all, nobody wants to spend the time and effort redecorating every year to fit with what’s ‘in’. Instead, the choice should be something that fits your own colour and style preferences.

Of course, not everyone in Brighton lives in the same kind of home. While some might live somewhere that epitomises style and tradition embedded in stucco plaster, others may have a modern home that suits more variation. You should make your decisions on what looks good, not be a slave to fashion.

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.

This low maintenance, high functionality and beautiful appearance have made plantation shutters the favoured choice of many homeowners, but there may come a point due to misuse, age or bad luck where an issue could develop on one of the louvres.

This most commonly takes the form of a single one of the multiple louvre slats coming loose and sliding down even when the latch lever is lifted.

This is, thankfully, very easily fixed with the help of a Phillips cross-head screwdriver. Find the tension screws at each side and tighten them a bit whilst the shutters are closed. This will keep them in line with the rest of the shutter and should keep their position for a while.

They can sometimes also become misaligned, typically the result of a loose alignment pin that connects the louvre with the latch lever. Simply open the louvres so they are parallel to the frame, push the pin back into place and the issue should be very easily and clearly fixed.

The other, more serious issue that can occur after a long time, impact damage or a lot of temperature changes and warping that can come during particularly bitter temperatures or unusual amounts of pressure is broken parts of the frame or louvres themselves.

In some smaller cases of louvre damage, if you can live with a slight blemish to the shutters themselves, wood glue could potentially be used to fix it and put it back into place.

Larger damage might need an expert to replace the louvre itself, and broken frames will often require the entire shutter to be swapped out for a new one. 

The end of summer will always bring some disappointments as the days get shorter, the leaves start to fall and cricket stumps are pulled up at Hove for the last time this year. But this year brings a real sense of foreboding as the Energy Price Cap soars and many will worry about how to keep their homes warm, especially in Regency buildings with high ceilings.

However, this is where the use of full height window shutters in Brighton can prove invaluable. The reason for this is that wooden shutters are by definition made from a material that insulates and, because they are made-to-measure and don’t leave lots of gaps for cold air to sneak through, will help keep the warmer air inside the room on cold nights. 

This could prove particularly essential in the winter ahead as the temperatures drop, as homes with good insulation will be better equipped to cope with the heating being used sparingly in order to keep energy bills down. Indeed, now may be a good time to invest in insulating measures of various kinds.

February is the coldest month of the year in Brighton, based on figures from the weather station at nearby Shoreham Airport, with an average of around six degrees. Being a seaside town and further south than most of Britain, the winter will be milder than in nearly every other part of the UK.

Even so, it will still get cold, so now is the time to take steps to ensure your home is kept as well-insulated and warm as possible, helping you use less energy while still remaining warm in the coming months.

However, for people who own solid wood shutters, one of the best ways to keep the heat out in summer and keep warmth from escaping in winter is to close the shutters.

A study by English Heritage found that shutters could reduce the amount of heat that was lost by over 50 per cent, with similar results found for stopping heat from getting in.

This is one of the benefits of shutters that you might not have expected, but there are other considerable benefits that range from the obvious improvements to privacy, lighting and ventilation, to other more unexpected benefits.

Here are just a few more benefits to plantation shutters.

Easier To Clean

Curtains can be a bit of a nightmare to clean, and so many people either limit their curtain cleaning to an occasional dusting or do not bother at all, which means that they are at risk of containing potential contagions, pathogens, allergens, and dust.

Shutters can simply, easily and efficiently be wiped clean, not requiring any more maintenance than that to last years.

Soundproofing

Because plantation shutters are made from a more solid material than traditional curtains or even Venetian blinds, they can be very effective when closed as a soundproofing material.

Part of the reason for this is the material; the solid wood construction blocks out external noise in the same way a door does, and because of this external noise is reduced.

This can make shutters very useful as a home studio or home office soundproofing solution as an augmentation to other soundproofing methods, allowing for more professional communications and better results.

To achieve similar results, curtains have to be particularly thick and made from a material suitable for soundproofing, which is less likely to be found in a home setting.

Window coverings may seem like the last task on your to do list, but choosing the right kind can really change the entire look and feel of a room.

Blinds are a popular option as they are easy to install, easy to use and come in a range of colours and styles. The simplicity of blinds is part of what attracts people to them and the option to have them hidden is also a huge bonus. However, blinds can feel dull and boring and while functional, they add little to a room aesthetically.

Shutters are a fantastic alternative to those who want both style and functionality. Shutters act not only as window coverings but also as a feature of your home. Aesthetically, they are wonderful and can add a classic and fashionable touch to any room. 

Durability is also a huge positive. Well-made shutters can last a lifetime and if maintained properly will look incredible for years, whereas alternatives like blinds and curtains often deteriorate from exposure to sun and various cleaning products. 

Shutters are also fantastic insulators, which only makes them more desirable. They are able to be opened and closed depending on whether you want to retain heat or allow air flow. 

There is also a wide range of materials that they can be made from, meaning you have far more flexibility when choosing the style that is right for you.

Low maintenance, durable and stylish, shutters are a fantastic way to add character and individuality to your home and are sure to be a talking point for guests. 

For bespoke window shutters, visit The Brighton Shutter Company today.