Plantation shutters are real wood shutters that are a popular choice for window coverings. If you're in love with the idea of wood shutters, plantation shutters may offer you the kind of value you crave in classic wood, including durability, aesthetic appeal and increased insulation due to louvres that seal tightly to keep you cooler during the summer and warmer in the winter. If you're interested in buying plantation shutters for the first time, here's some information about what they are and how they're put together.
ORIGIN
The current crop of plantation shutters take their name from early American history when the Spanish settled on undeveloped territory that is now known as the United States. Those early settlers cultivated large cotton and sugar plantations and built large houses with windows that featured wood shutters with wide louvres that could limit sunlight from entering those homes. These shutters became associated with plantations all the way through the times of slave owners well into the late 1800s before plantations gave way to less sizable properties.
BENEFITS
Plantation shutters are beautiful and made of real wood, which you can also customise. You can order shutters with different wood types, including basswood, pine and beechwood, depending on your budget. Typically, you will pay more for plantation shutters that are made of higher grades of wood such as mahogany, teak, pine, cherry and oak. Plantation shutters also feature adjustable louvres that are hand controlled so you don't have to worry about a cord that can get tangled or present safety risks for children and pets. These louvres also give you a greater level of control in how much or how little light you want entering your room. The shutters are also easy to cut to non-traditional window shapes such as arched windows, bay windows and hexagonal windows.
BASIC PARTS
Plantation shutters feature a top rail and a bottom rail that frame the shutters, and their size is dependent on the size of your louvres. Louvres are the vertical slats that either shut off light from the outside or allow light to enter a room. Louvres come in standard sizes from 63 mm to 114 mm but can also be customised if you have larger or smaller windows. As previously mentioned, louvres are hand-controlled by a mechanism known as a tilt bar, which is a vertical bar attached to the centre of a group of louvres that controls their movement. Plantation shutters may have two tilt bars, one on the upper portion and one on the lower portion, or one long bar to control all the louvres.
For more information, contact a business such as Inspired Window Coverings.
