Do you yearn for the warm look of wood that brings to mind a rustic hunting lodge or a cozy cottage? Hardwood shutters are a beautiful addition to your home that can dramatically control light while offering your home privacy and comfort.
Do You Have Custom Wood in Your Home?
If your home is free of the wooded themes many cottages and lodges have, hardwood shutters will add a touch of elegance to any room. However, for homes that have customized wood interiors, you can get your hardwood shutters custom stained to match, ensuring your home design looks its best. Hardwood shutters have a beauty and texture that surpass composite or vinyl wood shutters, along with many more textures and stains, including:
- Distressed
- Glazed
- Burnished
Don’t want to match your shutters directly with your home’s interior? No problem. Talk with a professional consultant to discover fun ways to break interior design’s rules.
What Are Your Windows Like?
Where you plan to place your shutters and how they interact with your home is an important part of your decision to invest in hardwood shutters.
Trim
If you have a window trim that you love to show off, hardwood shutters will cover the trim when placed on the outside of the window. To keep your trim exposed, you can mount the shutters on the inside of the window. On the other hand, if your windows are currently “trim-less”, hardwood shutters will create a beautiful one. Keep in mind that mounting shutters inside of the window will cause the frame to cover part of the window itself, creating a smaller view.”
Frame Shape
If your windows are an unusual shape, you will need custom window shutters to properly fit inside the frame. This process will require precise measurements. Remember, no two windows are the same. Consider finding a designer who’s willing to meet with you for an in-home consultation.
Tilt
If you want your hardwood shutters to be mounted on the inside of your windows, you must know if your windows tilt in for cleaning. If that’s the case, the shutters can only be placed on the outside of the window since you will lose the tilt feature if mounted on the inside because the shutter frame won’t move once installed.
What Climate Do You Live In?
Where you live is also a big determinate of what kind of shutters will work for you. If you live in a humid environment, your hardwood shutters can become warped. So if you live in such a climate or want to put shutters in a high-humidity area like the bathroom, you should consider composite wood instead. Composite wood shutters won’t warp and are available in a variety of stains to mimic the look of real wood.
Hardwood shutters are best suited for dryer climates so they don’t warp, but you must remember that even in dryer climates, hardwood still needs some humidity to prevent cracking, as all natural wood has some kind of moisture in it.
Is Lift System Safety a Concern?
If you have children or pets, hardwood shutters are a safe window treatment option since they have no corded lift system. Instead, hardwood shutters have a tilt bar that can be put on the inside or outside of the shutter to open the louvers, giving you simple and quick control of how much light comes into your home.