Hey, there friends! It's been a busy weekend for us. We just about killed ourselves on Saturday getting the fence sprayed, but I'm happy to say, it is finished! It went a lot faster having the spray gun and I'll be sharing that project soon. It feels good to check that one off the list too!
In the meantime, over a week ago we had some exciting happenings going on at our house. We had new plantation shutters installed in the living room, dining room, and Mark's man cave. And wow, at the difference they make.
Plantation shutters are not inexpensive and I really never thought I could afford them, but we do save up for our projects around here and pay cash for them, so I'll tell you all about this one. I am working with a sponsor, Sunburst Shutters, but we had the dining room comped and we paid for the rest, so even though that was a big plus, we still had a pretty penny to pay.
Just as a back story, I did have a company come out and give us an estimate a few months ago for plantation shutters. Their price was $2500 for all 8 windows we were covering. That seems to be about the norm, I've heard around $300 per window is to be expected. We ended up paying more than that with Sunburst Shutters, but we are really happy with the results.
I'll be the first to admit that I knew practically nothing about plantation shutters and the particulars about how they are made and put together. So, I really didn't do a lot of research. When I had the first quote done last year, I had a quote for all wood shutters. I've since heard that all wood can be problematic as they can warp and crack over time.
So when Sunburst Shutters contacted me about their Polywood line of shutters, with 100% lifetime warranty and the fact that these are non-wood shutters made of a solid engineered wood substitute that won't chip, crack, warp, or split, well, that sounded really good to me. I knew we wanted the widest slats available and 4″ slats did the trick!
The owner of the local Sunburst Shutter company, Dan Taylor, is a super nice guy and came out first and measured all the windows precisely and did the installation himself. In our initial meeting he showed me shutters from a competitor that were no more than laminate covered pressboard. The coating had been chipped away in spots and they looked terrible. So just be aware when you're looking at shutters exactly what they are made of. It took about 3 hours to complete the job and get our windows shuttered.
We were walking around the house hing and ahhing over our new plantation shutters and could not be happier. I took lots of pics, so please indulge me. We waited several months to get this done and are so happy with the outcome.
Shutters offer energy efficiency t and I think they will definitely keep the heat out more in summer when they are closed. We got the traditional style with the rail in the middle and the tilt rods, but you can choose different configurations now, including no tilt wand and no middle rail.
They really do make the living room so much better and high end and a great way to welcome people into our house, looking to the living room and then to the dining room.
It's very hard to photograph windows properly, but I tried to give you a good idea of the size and feel of these. The 4″ slats are so bold and beautiful.
The view from the dining room to the living room is outstanding and stunning! Those 3 windows with the transoms are just all kinds of pretty in my book. Such a nice architectural detail now!
Now let's peek into the dining room. The 2 dining room windows are the ones that were comped and they are valued at about $850 (with a discount offered). We paid right at $2500 for the remaining 6 windows in the living room and Mark's man cave, which I will hopefully be showing you later. He's actually going to write a post for me about his man cave and I'm so excited to read that myself!
My mom had them installed in her home, just one or two rooms at a time, and they added so much in function and also in form. I knew that is the direction I wanted to go for a few of the rooms in our home.
The nice thing about how our house is situated is that the back is pretty private and there are only a couple of windows along the side of the house. For the windows that run along the back, I've either made curtains or we have roll-up shades (for the boy's rooms). The only real privacy issue is with the windows in the front of the house.
This includes the dining room, my office, the upstairs guest/sewing room, and the master bathroom (which already had some blinds). Since none of these rooms really needed privacy, we've left the windows naked. It did feel like a bit of a fishbowl sometimes, though. I would be in my jammies and someone would knock at the door and I knew they could see that we were home. Or I would be sitting at my computer and a dog-walker would pass by and wave at me. Window treatments of some sort were bumped up on my list when that started happening!
A few weeks ago, after lots of measuring, checking and double-checking, I ordered plantation shutters for the dining room, my large office window (that faces the front), and the master bathroom. I ordered them from Select Blinds. (As full disclosure, this is not a sponsored post, but I did receive a discount.) Since plantation shutters have to be accurately fitted, they worked with me to make sure they would fit properly on my windows (specifically the one in my office that was 109″ wide!)
We got it all sorted out and they even contacted me a few times during the manufacturing to clarify some of the shutter design choices and how they would function. For example, they suggested putting a horizontal divider, so the tops and bottoms could open independently and so they would have more stability. I must admit that I was a little intimidated by all of the pieces. We had installed a shutter in my mom's house and it was easy, but I didn't remember having so many pieces! Once we started to open the boxes and got the first one assembled, though, it all came back and it was just as easy as I remembered. We had the first shutter installed in about 15 minutes. I think it took longer to get them out of the boxes! We still need to install the shutters in the master bathroom, but I need to paint the window frame, casing, and sashes first. We do have blinds there currently, so it's not an urgent project, but I'll probably get it done next week.
Eventually, we will order shutters for the upstairs guest room windows, so all of the window treatments in the front of the house are the same. There is a second story window in the foyer, but we'll leave that as is. We'll also eventually get shutters for the basement family room window and the downstairs guestroom. Both of those windows have the same wood-toned blinds that are in the master bathroom, so it's not a high priority to replace them. We'll probably just order one at a time, here and there, until all of those windows are done.