Shutters Enhance The Look Of Your Home
A. Caxton
There's nothing new under the sun. Take shutters, for example.
Shutters have been in use since the time of the early Greeks.
Before the advent of glass, there was no way to keep intruders
out of the home, except to have shutters over the windows. Or
wind or rain or other inclement weather, for that matter. Glass
was not used for windows until medieval times, and was so
expensive that it was generally put into the top floors of
houses, not on the bottom floors where they could be more
easily broken.
When the Europeans came to America and began to build their
homes, they brought the concept of the shutter with them. By
this time glass was not expensive but it was still easy to
break, and of course for security reasons having shutters just
made sense.
The shutter evolved for each geographical area in which it was
put in use. For example coastal locations which were subject to
hurricane winds would need a much stronger shutter, made out of
much stronger material, than that used in homes facing the
relatively placid weather of the midwest.
The Plantation shutter evolved to suit the needs of the huge
mansions of the South. The Colonial shutter has narrow louvers,
whereas the Plantation shutter has very wide louvers, from two
to three inches in width.
The Colonial shutter evolved on the east coast of the United
States where weather is more inclement, with a cold wind always
blowing during winter time.
Wealthy Southerners, overseeing their plantations of cotton or
tobacco, built homes to show off their opulence, as well as to
house the many members of their family. The signature elements
of a plantation home are Greek pillars, balconies, formal
ballrooms, covered porches, and imposing staircases (made most
famous by the film Gone With the Wind, starring Vivien Leigh),
and those shutters with wide louvers.
With no constant cold wind blowing to concern themselves with,
the inhabitants of the South began using wider louvers which
allowed more sunlight and air into t he home during the summer
months when the heat of the day could be very oppressive .
These days, the choice between Colonial or Plantation shutters
depends on your own personal taste. When you're dusting
louvers, is it quicker to dust several narrow ones or only a
few wide ones? Do you want a lot of sunlight streaming into
your home or not quite so much? And of course do you like the
simple elegance of narrow louvers or the solidness of the
wider.
Shutters are made from vinyl, PVC, or wood. One of the knocks
on vinyl shutters is that they don't have the grain and
elegance of the wooden shutter, but determined inventors have
been working on that project for decades. You don't want to use
wooden shutters in areas of high humidity, as they will warp or
crack. However, vinyl can not be shaped as easily as wood for
specialty designs.
About The Author: Andrew Caxton is the author of many resources
on vinyl patterns related topics published in
http://www.home-decorating-reviews.com . For additional
information on blinds or vinyl shutters subjects have a look at
his web
http://www.home-decorating-reviews.com/interior-vinyl-shutters.html
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