Plantation shutters are window shutters in the style of plantations where plants and crops would be grown. These are essentially wooden doors that shut over the top of windows or doors (normally glass) and have lots of thin slits or rails organized horizontally going across the frame. Often there will also be louvers and other things mounted within the frame.
Plantation shutters have many great benefits for any property and can help to offer a kind of ‘halfway house’ between letting in light and providing shade and privacy. Essentially the slats work the same way as might a blind by blocking the sunlight partially while allowing some to come through. This then creates a scenic feel indoors with the strips of light breaking through and is perfect for relaxing too in the morning. This also means that you can help to keep the rooms cooler and not get too hot which is great if you live in a sunny area where you might otherwise sweat in your own front room in the mornings.
The great thing about plantation shutters though is that normally you might have to completely shut the doors in order to block out the sunlight. This would then make the room actually hotter ironically in some ways as the sunlight heated up the doors and as no air was able to escape creating a muggy feeling. With shutters you end up letting in the thin strips of light but block a fair amount of heat while still letting the air circulate. Of course this is also preferable as it helps to allow you to let air in still to circulate and this acts almost as a vent. This then can be another benefit of the doors – allowing you to mimic the effect of having more solid doors in terms of security keeping children or dogs indoors while meanwhile allowing you to still get the fresh air and light in that you want. Meanwhile it will also help to provide shade from glare so that you aren’t getting too much light off of your books and magazines in order to read.
There are other benefits of shutters too and you can use these between different rooms as this will allow you to create some amount of privacy between rooms but again it will allow you to create a more open feeling for your home. In some ways shutters are like having glass doors between rooms or sliding patio doors, but the combination of light air and sound is slightly different with shutters allowing more of the first two in and less of the latter.
The great thing about all this is that you can use different combinations of shutters once they are installed. If you have these in addition to glass doors for instance, then you can choose to have both open, just one set open, or both closed and this way create all different combinations of light and air.