Shutter design, tips and features for window shutters

As the name suggests Café style shutters got their name from being used in European cafes throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. In fact many cafe's across Europe still make use of this inventive method of window covering today. Some say this are purely from France, however we're not entirely sure, as examples of cafe shutters can be seen across central Europe not just France, but Prague, Vienna and so on.

There are a number of benefits to using the cafe style shutters, although possibly the biggest reason is that the the privacy of the room remains intact due to the lower portion of a window being covered by the shutters, whilst still letting in enough light - whether ambient or street light. So cafe dwellers could relax and enjoy their coffees without being scrutinised by passers by. Clearly, this is also one of the biggest driving forces of cafe shutters in residential homes today, with privacy being controlled by merely twisting a push rod or tilting the slats.

Controlling the temperature in a room is also a major benefit of using cafe shutters, as these older European café's would have found as they often had huge windows which would act as a sun trap for sunshine, much as a greenhouse would do. When closing just the shutters the room would still retain a good degree of light from the open upper portion, keeping the room light and airy, without smelting under the heat! Don’t forget to read our article on whether your shutters should open or not, as this also applies to cafe styled shutters.

So, cafe shutters refers to shutters which cover only the lower portion of a window. The images included in this article demonstrate this idea in a variety of different applications. Many of the streets in the UK are pretty close to house fronts, and closing the cafe shutters will instantly create privacy without dampening the entire source of natural daylight. Cafe styled shutters can be fitted to bay windows and box bay windows as we can see in the second and third images, and only help to reinforce the advantages of using window shutters in the cafe style, with the view from the street being completely obscured.

The final example of cafe shutters is from a first floor bedroom window, which again creates exactly the same advantages of privacy, light and heat control in a room. Clearly privacy in an overlooked bedroom is of importance and these style of cafe shutters do the job perfectly!

The final image we put in as a bit of fun using a real cafe showing their shutters in action! This is precisely how the term came about in real use as cafe’s used shutters for this application.

We hope you found this write up and useful and that you think about getting cafe shutters installed in your home! Remember, they’re applicable upstairs and downstairs, main rooms or bedrooms, anywhere where you want to add light with privacy. You may well be updating an oplder style property such as an Edwardian house shutters with cafe style, so bear in mind the heritage of your property when considering your window coverings.

UPDATE - we've added a story about solid shutters so you might want to go on and compare them to these cafe ones, sorry, yet another design choice to make!