Raleigh's Frequently Asked Questions About Shutters

For more than 7 years, we’ve heard every question about shutters you can imagine from our customers in Raleigh. And we’ve put together the top ten of them here. Maybe in these questions and answers you’ll find answers to questions of your own. If not, please don’t hesitate to contact Sunburst Shutters Raleigh directly. We’re here to assist you and happy to do so.

That depends on how you want the shutters to mesh with your home’s décor. Do you want a shutter that contrasts your wall paint color and has clean lines? Polywood® plantation shutters are perfect for you. Or are you looking to copy the wood in your home as closely as possible? Ovation® wood shutters are a better fit for you.

Plantation shutters are celebrated for being energy efficient. And to get the most energy savings, our Polywood Shutter Insulation System is the only choice.

For the budget-conscious, blinds can be temporary window treatments to cover your windows. Chances are, store-bought blinds will deteriorate over time, with its strings snapping and the loops that hold the slats in place falling apart. Not to mention, they might be troublesome to clean. Even if you're budget-conscious, Sunburst Shutters blinds have the durability and craftsmanship lacking in off-the-rack, store-bought, or online blinds.

Shades offer a host of colors, materials, and unique patterns, transforming your window into artwork. Just by pulling up the fabric of the shade, your entire window is exposed and you can see out onto your Raleigh neighborhood.

Draperies also offer a wide variety of color, fabric, and patterns. They are a traditional alternative for a window treatment. Placing thick panels between the drapes and the window provides you with light and temperature block-out capabilities. And unlike other window treatments, there’s no need to clean draperies for five years.

If you are searching for a window treatment that lasts more than 10 years, saves you money on your energy bills, and looks beautiful on your windows, shutters are the choice for your home. Not only are shutters durable, but they’re also elegant and energy efficient. Actually, Polywood shutters insulate up to 70% better than an equivalent wood shutter. That's energy savings you will miss out on with any other window treatment.

When it comes to control over privacy and light, plantation shutters are unmatched. And with their large louvers, Polywood plantation shutters give your house a clean contemporary feel whether they’re closed or open.

A poorly installed window treatment can be challenging to open and can get damaged easily. We have a professional installation crew that comes to your home and installs your window treatment just right, ensuring that each one moves perfectly – and doesn’t get damaged throughout.

But before we start installing your shutters, we bring shutter samples to your home so we can custom fashion your window treatment together. Learn more about our free in-home consultation.

Your plantation shutter slats – or louvers – can be moved without difficulty by adjusting them up or down. Generally, a tilt rod mounted on the front of the shutters lets you adjust the louvers. If you want to move the louvers with your hand, we suggest buying shutters with hidden tilt-rods or rear-mounted tilt rods. This gives your shutters a clean, contemporary look.

Our Polywood shutters last 50+ years – more than any other shutter around. That’s why these plantation shutters are a permanent fixture that raises your home’s resale value. Learn more about the durability of our shutters.

Plantation shutters are a piece of cake to clean because they have large louvers and their tilt bars are either hidden or mounted on the rear. Merely tilt them open and dust them like furniture – or wipe smudges with a damp cloth.

Plantation shutters are custom made to fit your windows just right. They become a permanent fixture of your home, boosting its resale value. It’s not possible to move these shutters from one house to another.

Plantation shutters are an investment that allows temperature control, energy efficiency, and privacy. They are custom manufactured and installed on your windows to become permanent fixtures. Not only are they beautiful and energy saving, but plantation shutters also add to the value of your house. We’ve seen it first hand in Raleigh!

A half shutter allows you privacy on the bottom and leaves the top open for light and view. It’s called a café style shutter. But is it the appropriate look for a plantation shutter?

Cafe Shutters Cafe Style Shutters With Divider

In the end, it’s a style choice – whether you like the look of a half shutter or that of a plantation shutter with a divider rail.

A full length shutter with a divider rail “completes” your window, giving it a fully finished look – and letting you close the bottom louvers for privacy while leaving the top louvers open for light. At night, you can close the top louvers as well for privacy and security. That’s also helpful during the day when the sun is preventing you from watching TV. And don’t worry about forgoing any of your view. A 3.5" or 4.5" louver will almost disappear when opened flat and gives you more than enough space to look through.

Piece of cake! Call us at 919-887-9198 or fill out the form below to schedule your free in-home consultation, and we’ll take it from there. We come out to your home to measure the windows you want to add shutters to and bring samples of all of our shutter products and their available options. This way we can provide you with the most accurate shutter quote for your project. Schedule your in-home consultation today!

Absolutely! There’s rarely a need to take out or do work on your existing window trim when you buy new plantation shutters. Natural Ovation wood shutters and deluxe Polywood shutters are available in an array of frame styles to fit easily into your existing window trim. If your windows are trimless, we offer frame styles to install right onto the wall around your window to fix your beautiful new shutters to your window opening.

Your shutter installation crew will measure each of your house’s windows during your free design consultation to make sure that your new shutters will fit perfectly with your window trim.

Sunburst Shutters Raleigh is committed to offering a range of shutters made right here in America. Not only are Polywood plantation shutters America’s #1-selling shutter, but they’re 100% made in America. Not only does that result in savings passed on to you from cutting unnecessary shipping and handling costs, it also gives you the bonus of knowing you’ve chosen an all-American window treatment for your Raleigh house.

And it’s not just Polywood that’s from America. Our stunning Reclaimed Wood shutters are built with lumber repurposed from places across the country, from homespun Southern barn doors to beautiful New England fences and more.

The primary difference between paints and stains for shutters is how the color interacts with the shutter material. Paint lays on the top layer of the material it’s coloring, covering the surface. Stains conversely, seep into the shutter, bonding to the natural wood or Polywood material.

Both methods come with their individual benefits. There tend to be a larger number of color choices for paints. With stained shutters, the color doesn’t obscure the natural wood grain, so you’re able to see the random grooves and bumps of the material without it being hidden by a layer of paint.

During your in-home window design consultation, our team will bring paint and stain samples directly to your home so you can perfectly match and complement colors with your current design.

The entire plantation shutter process, from your initial consultation to finishing your shutter installation, will take about four to six weeks on average. The process takes this long because our goal is to build 100% custom shutters for your windows. Doing that requires us to take exact measurements, make use of sophisticated software to design them, assemble your brand-new shutters by hand, and deliver them to your home for installation. Real wood shutters tend to take longer than faux wood due to the staining and finishing process.

It will take a little time, but it’s definitely worth the wait.

Yes! We’d be delighted to show you our showroom so you can see our entire collection of shutters and window treatments. We’re located at 3305 Durham Dr. Suite #119, so you’re welcome to stop by anytime during our standard business hours to talk about what you need.

We offer a total shop-at-home experience. So we send one of our reps to you to measure all your windows, show you your options, and give you an accurate quote. The in-home consultation is totally free. That’s the most effective way to start your window treatment project. If you’re only looking for a simple estimate, you can send us your window measurements either by phone or through our contact form.

Whether or not to remove the trim depends on your own taste. If you want to keep your trim in place, we can build custom shutters to fit with your current trim. If you like our shutter frames better, then you can remove the trim—but it’s not a requirement. If you want to go without trim or replace your trim, your Sunburst installer can help you pick the right option to match the vision you have in mind for your windows.

If you’re an experienced DIYer, you’re probably familiar with some of the process involved in a shutter installation. However, taking on DIY shutters may be a little complicated for most Raleigh homeowners. We would suggest leaving the installation to professionals that are certified and insured, so you won’t risk damage to your shutters, your windows, or any other part of your home.

Far and away our most popular shutter products are our classic white Polywood® plantation shutters, and Ovation® wood shutters.

To get more specific, the most common shutter configuration features includes a 3.5” louver, smooth finish, and an interior-mount Z-frame. If all that information is confusing, that’s ok. We’d be happy to show you what all those things mean in person. Set up your free in-home consultation and we’ll help you find what would work best in your home.

Smooth finish shutters have a more modern look, whereas textured finish shutters look more natural and historic. But the perks to each style of plantation shutter finish are a little deeper, and ultimately it comes down to your own style.

Perks of shutters with a smooth finish – A smooth finish to your shutters offer a solid, sleek, modern look. If your home doesn’t have many other wood accessories like hardwood floors or exposed beams, you may not want a smooth finish. A smooth finish is easier to see when it needs dusting, compared to a textured finish. We typically recommend a smooth finish for faux wood shutters like Polywood.

Perks of a textured finish for shutters – A textured finish on your shutters gives you a more natural, somewhat historic look to your shutters. That’s awesome if you’re trying to bring the beauty of nature inside, especially if you want to accentuate the look of your hardwood floors. A textured finish on your shutter louvers will also make it harder to see dust, meaning you can wait a little longer between regular cleanings. A wood-grain finish looks especially great on real wood shutters in Raleigh.

Typically, the larger the surface area of your window, the more shutter panels you’ll need. Our recommendation is to use one panel for windows up to 26 in. wide, two panels for windows up to 50 in. wide, and four for windows up to 98 in. wide.

Single wide panels are not as user-friendly as multiple separate panels. Oftentime, wider panels can’t fit flush against the wall due to their size. Multiple small panels don’t have that same issue.

For any windows that you’ll want to open or shut often, you’re usually better off with multi-panel shutters, since it’s easier to open them and they have more support from the frame when you do operate them.

With Sunburst Shutters Raleigh, any and all window measurements will be done for free by one of our installers as part of your in-home consultation. Even if your window is in a hard to reach area of your home or has a distinct shape, our installers can get you an accurate measurement so that the shutters you get will fit your windows seamlessly.

During your free in-home consultation, your Sunburst Shutters pro can help you pick from our wide variety of Raleigh plantation shutters, featuring choices for finish, stain colors, and custom framing options.

So schedule your in-home consultation now by calling 919-887-9198 today.

Sunburst can help you find the perfect shutter for your windows, no matter how thin your frame. We will work with an outside mount installation that connects to the trim or wall outside the window cavity . Your window treatments will still have equivalent capabilities and energy efficiency, and will tie in perfectly into your design scheme.

If the louver is disconnected and jutting from the frame, you likely have a broken louver pin. To fix this you should take out the pin from both the louver and the stile with a set of needle-nose pliers or a utility knife. Once the pin is withdrawn, put the replacement pin base into the same hole in the shutter stile, then guide the louver onto the pin. To acquire extra louver pins for free, just call us at 919-887-9198.

Actual prices of plantation shutters revolves on the chosen product line and window dimensions. While we can present you a basic quote over the phone, exact prices are computed after our free in-person consultation. Call 919-887-9198 to schedule an appointment today.

To start, remove the damaged staple away from the louver with a tool like of needle-nose pliers. Then apply some adhesive (like wood glue or epoxy) to spread all over the legs of a new staple. guide the staple into the loop on the louver and direct its legs into the existing staple holes on the tilt rod. For extra shutter staples, call us at 919-887-9198.

Polywood shutters are seen as some of the safest window coverings in Raleigh. The cordless, durable design is perfect for children and pets. The non-toxic and hypoallergenic materials and paint will never chip or peel. And because Polywood is pest and moisture resistant, you will not have to wonder about termites, mold or wood rot.