Internal Window Shutters: Styles, Materials and What They Cost

Before You Order

• The configuration determines whether the window still works. A hinged pair needs room to swing into the room. A bi-fold needs somewhere to stack. A bypass track needs a wall to slide against. Get this wrong, and the shutter fights the furniture.
• Reveal fit or face fit is a real choice. Inside the reveal looks built in and keeps the sill usable. Outside on the architrave, it suits shallow reveals and out-of-square openings.
• A mid-rail is not decorative. Splitting the panel horizontally allows the top and bottom louvres to move independently, which is what you want for a street-facing window.
• Match the material to the room, not the house. PVC in wet areas, timber where the grain shows, aluminium where the window is exposed.
• Louvre width changes the room, not just the shutter. Four widths are available, from 50.8mm to 114mm. Wider means a clearer sightline and more view.
• Shutters have no cords. In a child’s bedroom, that is a genuine safety advantage over most blinds, not a styling preference.

Materials, Briefly

Three materials, and the room decides which.

PVC for bathrooms, laundries, kitchens and anywhere humidity or splashing is routine. It wipes clean and does not need refinishing. Shutters Australia’s SMRT range uses high-tech polymers with an aluminium core, which allows a polymer panel to span a wide window without bowing.

Timber where the grain is part of the room: living areas, bedrooms, anywhere street-facing that you want to look considered. Basswood is the usual choice for width, with Kiri and Poplar in the Wood Plus+ range and Western Red Cedar also available. Needs more care around steam and direct sun.

Aluminium for exposed interior windows and anywhere the shutter is really doing an exterior job.

For a full comparison of the materials, see our guide to PVC plantation shutters, which compares all three room by room.

Panel Configuration, the Part That Gets Skipped

This is where shutters succeed or annoy you, and it is the question suppliers are least often asked.

Hinged panels are the default. Two panels meeting in the middle, or one panel on a narrow window, hinged to the frame and swinging into the room. Simple, reliable, fewest moving parts. The catch is swing space: a hinged panel needs clear room to open, so a window behind a bed, a sofa back or a kitchen bench is a problem.

Bi-fold panels hinge to each other as well as to the frame, so they concertina back rather than swinging as one piece. This is what you use on a wide window where a single swing would be unmanageable, or where you want the whole opening clear. They stack into a bundle at one or both ends, so you need somewhere for that bundle to sit.

Bypass or sliding panels run on a track, one panel passing in front of another, like a wardrobe door. This is the answer for wide sliding doors and very wide windows where nothing can project into the room. The trade-off is that you can never clear the whole opening: one panel is always covering part of it.

Fixed panels do not open at all. The louvres still tilt, so you keep the light control, but the panel stays put. Useful above a kitchen bench, on a window you never open, or as part of a wider configuration where only some panels need to move.

Which one to choose comes down to three questions, in order. Does the window itself need to open, and how? What is in front of it? And how wide is the opening? A 900mm bathroom window and a 3600mm sliding door are not the same problem.

Reveal Fit or Face Fit

Two ways to mount the frame, and it changes both the look and what is possible.

Reveal fit sets the shutter inside the window recess, so the frame sits flush within the opening and the shutter reads as part of the window. It is the cleaner look and it keeps the sill free. It needs enough reveal depth for the frame and the louvres to clear the glass and any window furniture, which is the usual constraint: a shallow reveal, or one with a window handle projecting into it, may not take a reveal fit.

Face fit mounts the frame on the wall or architrave around the opening. It suits shallow reveals, openings that are out of square, and situations where you want to cover an unattractive frame. It projects further into the room and it covers the architrave, which some people like and some do not.

Older houses are where this gets decided for you. Reveals that are out of square, out of plumb or not the same width top and bottom are common, and a face fit with a frame that absorbs the discrepancy is often the only way to get a result that looks square.

Louvres, Rails and Posts

Louvre width. Four are available: 50.8mm, 63mm, 89mm and 114mm. Wider louvres mean fewer of them, a cleaner face and more view through the window when open. Narrower louvres read as more traditional and suit smaller windows, where a wide louvre looks out of scale.

Tilt style. Two options. A plantation tilt keeps the traditional centre rod down the front of the panel. Clearview hides the mechanism inside the stile, so the panel face is uninterrupted. Both control the louvres the same way; it is an appearance decision.

Mid-rail. A horizontal rail dividing the panel into two sections, each with its own louvre control. This is the single most useful option on a street-facing window: close the lower half for privacy and leave the top half open for light. Without it, the whole panel moves together and you choose between privacy and daylight.

T-post. A vertical post between panels on a wide opening. It gives the panels something to close against and stiffens the whole assembly, at the cost of a visible upright in the middle of the window. On wide spans it is often what makes the configuration possible.

Measuring, and Why It Is Not DIY

Shutters are made to the opening, so the measurement is the product. There is no adjustment at installation the way there is with a blind.

What a professional measure establishes that a tape measure alone does not:

1. Whether the opening is square. Most are not, and the discrepancy determines reveal fit or face fit.
2. Reveal depth, and whether there is room for the frame and louvre clearance.
3. What projects into the opening. Window handles, winders, locks and security screens all limit what can be fitted.
4. Which configuration suits, given the furniture, the door swing and how the window itself opens.
5. Where the panel divisions should fall, so they line up sensibly with the window’s own mullions rather than cutting across them.

A shutter that is 5mm too wide does not fit. One that is 5mm too narrow leaves a light gap you will notice every morning. That is why almost every supplier includes measuring, and why a quote based on numbers you supplied yourself usually carries a disclaimer.

What They Cost

Shutters Australia’s published Sydney ranges put a small window, roughly 600mm x 600mm to 900mm x 1200mm, at $250 to $500 installed, a standard bedroom window around 1200mm x 1200mm at $400 to $800, and a large living-room window at $800 to $1,500. A whole home covering several rooms sits roughly between $4,550 and $9,900.

Treat those as planning ranges rather than quotes. Beyond size, what moves the figure is material, panel count, louvre width, custom shapes, colour and finish, site access and installation.

For the full breakdown, including a worked whole-home example and what a complete quote should contain, see our plantation shutters cost guide.

Room by Room

Shutters rarely give full blockout: light passes between the louvres and around the frame. A bedroom that needs real darkness usually wants blockout curtains as well. For how shutters compare against blinds generally, see our guide to shutters or blinds.

One safety note. Internal shutters are operated by a tilt rod or a mechanism inside the panel, with no cords or chains. Corded blinds and curtains fall under a mandatory Australian safety standard because loose or looped cords are a strangulation risk to young children. In a nursery or a child’s bedroom, that difference is worth weighing alongside appearance and price.

Frequently Asked Questions