In this video, I’ll run through some advice on layout, louvre size, colour, folding, privacy and frame positions.
The design of your shutter will affect the look from both inside and outside, unlike curtains or blinds, shutters are designed to stay closed across your window, it's only the louvre blades you need to tilt for privacy and to let the light in and out.
For this reason, it's key the design of your shutter should match your window layout. There are several different shutters designs you can choose from, but for the DIY option, we keep things easy and simple and focus on the most popular and recommended design which is full height.
The full height design covers the whole window from top to bottom, over this height the louvres can be split into sections either using a horizontal dividing middle rail or by splitting the hidden tilt mechanism. Some people cover only half their window known as cafe style, but we don’t recommend it.
The frames are 60mm deep, so if you only go halfway up your window, the shutters look like they stick out and are stuck on, plus what ever you put above the shutters won’t match.
Others choose a split top opening style shutter known as tier on tier, a nice idea, but now everyone chooses larger louvres and wider panels, nobody opens the top set of shutters so you end up with a two wide rails across your window permanently.
Tier on tier are harder to fit and the top set of shutters will want to sag down and sit on the bottom set and rub, so our advice is to stick with the full height design. If you do want a different design, you will need to order it on the trade order form.
When designing shutters for your window, its best to keep things simple so there is one key rule to follow - Match the number of shutters to your window layout, so if you have a 3 section window, you need 3 shutters, a 4 section window needs 4 shutters and so on.
The size of louvre blades has increased over the years along with wider shutter panels. The most popular louvre sizes are 76mm or 89mm louvres, they will let plenty of light into your room and create the feeling of more space, if you have large windows, like lots of light or you have leaded lights, choose the 89mm louvres.
For anything else play it safe and choose the 76mm. We don’t recommend the small 64mm louvres unless your matching existing shutters, they were designed for the older bi-folding style shutters.
Most customers have white windows, and because shutters remain closed across your window most of the time, it's important to have plenty of light coming into your room.
The most popular colour is pure white, this blends with the most common features such as windows, skirting board, ceilings, radiators, sinks, toilets and baths.
A white shutter will reflect plenty of light into your room and create the feeling of a lot more space, so our recommendation for colour is Pure White.
With larger panels and louvres, shutters are only opened for cleaning or to open a window. So don’t worry about where the shutters are going to fold back, they don’t get used like curtains anymore.
A Tpost is used within a shutter frame to add extra support and to help align panels with your window. They make accessing an opening on wide windows very easy and saves wrestling with heavy bi-folding shutters. So if you have vertical uprights in your window called mullions, then we suggest using Tposts within the shutter frame to match.
When thinking about how the shutters fold, just keep them symmetrical so panels on the left open left and panels on the right open right, any centre panels between Tposts can be hinged left or right.
Within the design, for extra privacy, you can choose to split the mechanism used to tilt the louvres within a panel. So when all the louvres are fully open and tilted at the same angle, you won’t see this split. But this option does allow you to tilt the louvres separately above and below the split when you need extra privacy.
This is a great feature in the bedroom and on taller windows, but remember, every time you split a panel you double the amount of louvred sections you need to operate and line up, so I would use it sparingly, ideally, just in the bedrooms.
Rather than splitting the louvres, you can choose to add a physical rail. Dividing rails are required to provide extra strength on panels over 1800 - 1900mm high. They can also be aligned with any horizontal rails/features on your window, such as a top opening fan light. Adding a rail will also split the louvred sections providing more privacy.
And finally, where you fit the frame in your recess will affect how the shutters look from both inside and outside. The recommend and default position for fitting shutters is as close to the window as possible, this looks much neater than leaving a big space behind the shutters.
Fitting inside the recess will create more space and light in your room.