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Sam explains about the different plantation shutter blinds available for the interior of your home. Step by step instructions to save you building your plantation shutters with a rockler jig and dowels if you don't have a table saw or router.

Using plantation shutters as your window treatment can provide timeless beauty, they are easy to clean and hold their value.

There are 5 main designs, Full Height, Half Height, Top Opening, Track Mounted, and Shapes

The most popular shop made plantation shutter design is full height. This is a single height shutter that fits between the sill and the top of the window.

A full height design will have louvre blades running from top to bottom of the shutter.

The full height design is good for wide windows, like typical double glazed windows. In these cases not having a middle rail gives your window and bit more height.

Next up is the 'Half height' design, or cafe style, this style of shutter only covers half of the window and are normally popular if you just want some extra privacy or your using plantation shutters with curtains to control visibility.

Half height plantation shutters don't look as good with wide windows as they can make your window feel even wider or with double glazed windows with handles that stick out as the shutters have to be fitted further away from the window which can look a bit odd.

Try and keep the shutters fitted to the window frame itself and match the colour to the window frame because you're going to be looking at both the window and shutters together so they need to blend in and look fitted.

Half height shutters are very popular on Victorian sash windows because they can be fitted directly to the window, they are tall and narrow and have a natural split where the 2 sashes meet, which gives you a nice place to stop the shutters.

The top opening design also called tier on tier allows the top and bottom set of shutters to open independently from each other. They are split like a stable door, providing more flexibility for privacy, light and visibility control.

A typical top opening shutter would have 8 shutters across the window, the top set would have 2 shutters bifolding to the left and 2 shutters bifolding to the right and the bottom set would have exactly the same.

This design only suits windows that are tall and narrow (like a stable door), if you try and have top opening shutters on a wide window it would look a bit squashed and you would end up with lots of rails running across the centre of the window and not many louvre blades.

If you have a patio door or very wide window and you prefer the shutters to be folded back all to one side, then the track mounted option could be the answer.

Rather than being hinged at the sides the shutters have small wheels mounted at the top that run along a top track as the weight is supported you can have 4, 6, 8 or even 12 shutters hanging from a track.

It's still important to match the number of shutters to the number of sections in the windows, all the shutters need to be the same size to allow them to operate properly.

And finally shaped shutters. Plantation shutters can be made to fit almost any shape window angle or curved providing a really smart look.

With a shaped window, it's still important to match the layout of the shutters to the design of the window, shaped sections can be separated from the main shutters using horizontal or vertical T posts. Shaped shutters can still be hinged opened but it does depend on the design of your window to how far the shutters can be opened up.

Fitting the shutters towards the outside of the recess will still allow the shutters to open and wrap around the wall as long as your ceiling is not in the way, fitting inside the recess may limit how far you can open the shutters before they hit the top of the recess.

Remember, you will normally keep the shutters closed and adjust the louvres to let the light in and out, so how they open is not normally an issue.

You can choose how the louvre top blades are positioned within the shutters, for example in a curved window you can keep the louvres horizontal or following the curve around the shape in a fan design.

The frame design is important, choosing a Z frame on a curved window for example can create a really smart window covering because it will hide any imperfections of the curved window itself.

You can see a few examples of an angled window, a curved window with a fan top and Z frame and a triangular design in this video.

Shutters will help you save energy as they help insulate and look smart, they really are a fantastic window fashion covering.

If you would like some help with your plantation shutter design, just upload some photos on my website https://www.opennshut.co.uk so I can offer some advice on your window treatment.