20 Inspiring Internal Window Shutters

When I was thinking about window treatments for the new kitchen I was struck by how kitchen windows treatments differ from all the others in the house in that they don’t tend to be something you close at the end of the day to cut out the world. Unless your kitchen can be looked directly into there isn’t the need for privacy, you don’t really close them for warmth due to cooking appliances and you don’t want light blocked out as it’s a work space. So they are primarily for decorative purposes; although you might want slight shade if you’re in a very bright, sunny spot.

The back of our home gets sun from early morning to evening and, as the kitchen has no shade from nearby buildings, we may want the capacity to reduce this brightness – but the view of the garden and surrounding countryside is something we want to maintain as much as possible.

With that said I don’t want a naked window, I like a decoratively framed window. Should it be a pelmet? A semi opaque blind that would infuse any light if it were too intense?

As I was searching for a solution I realised I had this pair of cupboard doors…

I love the wood so I’d bought them on the off chance that I could fit them to the bookcases already in situ. However they’d been too wide and cutting them to size would have all but destroyed them. So they’ve been sat there waiting for a new home. I suddenly realise that instead of cupboard doors they could become shutters. It would dress the window, they could be partially closed to minimise the worst glare of the sun, but have much of the garden view exposed and they would be in sympathy with the “faded elegant” look of the country kitchen I was going for. Perfect.

Of course I turned to Pinterest for inspiration; the pins I curated can be divided largely into white, coloured and their natural wood.

White shutters

Many of these shutters I’ve selected are of the Georgian style that sit within the window casing. The depth of the window wouldn’t allow for that, and I don’t want to cut the shutters to achieve the look.

The clean, intact paint above is so lovely and personally I prefer this to the weathered look below. However the cut out pattern is lovely.

I love how the introduction of handles can add more interest…

I noticed how some had extended the window area below the window itself, and this space could be used as a window seat; considering the difficulty I was facing with the quality of cement beneath that area I was incredibly tempted with this idea….

Here’s a window seat area within a kitchen itself….

However I don’t have the skills to do this easily, due to the lockdowns we don’t have money to get help and ultimately I decided that the space had to be used as a seated area for the dining table. Accommodating window seating would mean that the rest of the length of the corner wouldn’t have seats as free standing seats would mean the table would automatically be moved away from the window. So I moved back to an idea of a comfortable couch that you could sit to dine on too.

Coloured shutters

Within the woodwork are the telltale signs of termites. Whether they’ve been dealt with so the piece is safe to use or not is to be determined. I’ll go into that in more detail in another post, but a way I’ve found to identify if termites are active is to simply paint the piece; active termites will break through and break the wood. But I didn’t have to paint the shutters white.

Inspired by this image in my tongue and groove research….

…but unsure how so much pink in a kitchen would affect my husband’s mental health, I considered reversing the colour option and having pink shutters in contrast to the white wall and wood of the sill.