Old Canaan Building Materials

The interior shutter is the window treatment that predates every other window treatment in the American tradition. It is not a blind, a curtain, or a shade. It is a wood element, hinged to the window casing, that closes to control light and provide privacy and opens flat against the wall reveal. In the traditional New England house, it belongs in specific rooms and at specific windows. Its presence or absence is part of the building's character.

Interior shutters, when open, fold flat against the wall within the window reveal. When closed, they fill the window opening with either horizontal louvers (for light control with privacy) or raised panels (for complete light blockage and privacy). The wood is painted — white in almost all traditional New England applications. The hardware is simple: a hinged bar that secures the shutters in the closed position.

Interior shutters in traditional New England buildings are built from clear white pine, 1-1/8" to 1-1/4" thick, in either louvered or panel construction. Louvered shutters have fixed or adjustable horizontal louvers at approximately 2-1/2" to 3" spacing. Panel shutters have raised wood panels in a stile-and-rail frame. Both are painted. They are hinged to the window casing at multiple points and fold back against the wall in pairs.

Interior shutters require more careful installation than any other window treatment because they must fold flat within a reveal that is typically 4" to 6" deep and close accurately over a window opening that may not be perfectly square. The hardware — the hinges, the tilt rod for adjustable louvers, the closing bar — requires periodic maintenance.

Interior shutters are the historically correct window treatment for the formal rooms of Federal, Greek Revival, and Colonial Revival buildings in New England — the parlor, the study, the dining room. They are not appropriate in every room of every building, but in the rooms where they belong, no curtain or blind provides the same character.

Custom interior shutters from millwork shops — this is the correct source for period-appropriate proportions and profiles. Plantation shutters from contemporary suppliers are too wide in the louver (3-1/2" or 4" is the contemporary standard; 2-1/2" is the traditional) and read as California rather than New England.