What Are Half Window Shutters?

Sometimes, it makes sense to only cover the bottom half of a window with shutters, rather than the more common full top-to-bottom coverage. These shutters, known as half height shutters, café style shutters, cafe shutters or half shutters, are perfectly suited for a number of different windows, giving you privacy and an increased amount of light entering into the room.

But which windows look best with half shutters, how do you measure for them and are they easy to install? Here, we’ll tell you everything you need to know to go ahead and measure, choose and install half shutters with confidence and ease.

What are half window shutters, and why should I choose them?

As the name suggests, half window shutters tend to cover just half of the window – the bottom half. The actual height and coverage of the shutters, however, is up to you (i.e.: you can cover as much or as little of the window as you like, but there will always be an uncovered section at the top).

They provide privacy whilst leaving the maximum amount of light to flood into your room through the uncovered top half. Half shutters are a sleek and stylish type of shutter. They evoke the effortless cool of a Parisian bistro and will cost you up to half as much as shutters covering your whole window, so are a great way to test the water on smaller windows before installing more on others around your home.

Image Credit: @thegentsofverona

Which windows look best with half height shutters?

Half shutters look fantastic on smaller windows, or on very wide ones (imagine a café front, with windows covering the whole of the street facing side). They are perfectly suited to bathroom windows, meaning that you’ll have privacy whilst in the shower or tub, yet enjoy lots of lovely natural light coming in at the same time for reading or getting ready.

Street level kitchen windows look great adorned with half shutters for the same reason. They’d also be ideal for a first floor living room, but not a bedroom (you want to be able to cover the whole window and close the slats at night for a peaceful night’s sleep).

Image Credit: @renovating51st

How do I measure for half window shutters?

Measure the height and width of the area of the window you want covered with half shutters. This might be the halfway point of a plain window, so simply halve the height measurement of the full window frame. If you are having shutters ending at a central piece of hardware such as a check or meeting rail, a horizontal grille or an upper opening window, measure the height to the central point of the element in question.

We have a range of easy-to-follow measuring guides that you can view and download at the window below, and the team is always on hand to help should you get stuck at any point. You could even email them a photo of your window for specific measuring instructions and style advice!

Ready to get going? Click below to start configuring those half window shutters.