MY STUNNING BRAND NEW SHUTTERS, THE SHUTTER STORE

There's a myth about basement flats that they're dark, dingy and damp.

Ok, before we bought our flat in 2013, during our property search I was adamant we'd never put an offer down on a basement flat for this reason. There's little to no light, no air flow and if you sit right at the bottom of an old building you're prone to rising damp.

Or so I thought. I met and fell in love with the flat we live in now (which we've actually just sold)

Fair enough the flat has never been polluted with light but I was certain that with the right window dressings, I'd be able to optimise for light all times of the day whilst offering privacy from those diverting eyes from passers by - we live on a super busy road and people like to see what I have for tea :-)

So we moved in. Here's what the front bay window looked like before we had shutters installed.

The scruffy linen curtains hung from a bay window pole that didn't even have curtain rings.

The previous owner had left them here in the flat when she moved out, committing the cardinal window dressing sin of combining tab top curtains with a bay window pole. You couldn't slide them open.

I'm not sure who was worse, her for rookie-ing on the curtain choice or me for keeping them up for a whole 18 months!

Anyway. The curtains just weren't doing us or the room any favours, we felt locked away from the outside world having them shut all the time.

Enough was enough so I decided to research window options for large bay windows.

Researching window dressing options for large bays

There's surprisingly a limited amount you can do within a reasonable budget for large bay windows.

My first port of call was actually looking at other houses on the street. They had similar sized windows, and I was keen to see what other homeowners were doing to maximise the light. I paid particularly strong attention to the buildings that had proper kerb appeal. Obvs.

I clocked something similar between all the homes that stood out from the rest.

For a start they didn't have flimsy, tatty little in-need-of-a-wash curtains like ours. They had made to measure plantation shutters which looked so tidy as you look in.

And that's when my love affair for shutters began...

Choosing the right shutters for us

I talked to Neil about ordering some. I asked whether he'd know how to fit them, or whether we'd need to hire someone in to do the job, and we came across The Shutter Store's DIY shutters which ticked boxes.

I was instantly sold on The Shutter Store for several reasons:

The shutter store provide people with DIY shutters which meant saving big bucks on shutter companies doing installation for you
I could see they had very clear videos on their website to help get the exact measurements and make fitting them a breeze
I had the option of choosing every last detail of the shutter, from the width of the panel to the colour of the hinges (perfectionists like me need more design choices like this)
But perhaps best of all, The Shutter Store provide a service where they can dip your shutters in any shade of Farrow & Ball, meaning you can match up to the exact shade of your woodwork.

Um. Wow.

Measuring up...

The measuring was a little tricky at first (only because they're fairly big windows, I'm a short person and Neil was out at the time so I didn't have anyone to make sure I didn't fall off the stool)

Once I got the knack of one window I was off :-)

I just used The Shutter Store's fairly simple measuring guidelines and I'm happy to announce not a millimetre was out of line.

The style you can see on the shutters we chose are wooden tier on tier, painted in Farrow & Ball's Wimborne White.

We opted for a slat size of 64mm. The thicker, the classier in my opinion.

And I went for Antique Brass hinges as I knew our period decor doesn't suit polished chrome metals.

They look absolutely stunning. Transformational, in fact. They've given the whole room life.

The fitting...

This part was very straight forward for us.

We actually ended up paying a carpenter a little bit of cash to install the shutters for us after they arrived in clearly labelled boxes, as we had a telephone cable running all the way along the bottom left hand window frame which needed adjusting. Oh the oddities of old houses.

We felt confident that we wanted the job done really well and if it wasn't for the telephone line needing a re-jig, Neil would 100% have been able to DIY.

I'm not exaggerating here, I made our carpenter Steve a cuppa tea and within about 90 minutes the whole job was complete.

How amazing is that?

Steve called me in to the living room once they were up for the grand reveal and I was squealing with excitement seeing them for the first time. Even he was impressed at the dramatic difference they make on the overall design of the room.

Steve said the installation was a breeze and he agreed that anyone fairly competent with a drill could do it themselves.

I just think that the saving you make by installing them yourself (or even just hiring someone else other than the shutter company that's making the frames) is remarkable. Companies can charge upwards of £500+ for just the fitting excluding the make of the shutters. Not The Shutter Store though, thank goodness they've got a process down to help homeowners who'd rather save costs and DIY.

Steve said of all the shutters he's installed these were a fabulous finish in comparison and I could not be happier.

I have no doubt that had we have not bothered updating our window dressings, we wouldn't have achieved the price we got for our flat when we came to sell it.

I asked an agent if plantation shutters can add value to your home and whilst he said he didn't think so, they certainly give much better light running through the property and instant kerb appeal.

No doubt about it, I'll be getting shutters installed once we move in to a bigger property - I already can't wait.

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