So what are plantation shutters and interior wooden shutters?

In this feature we're concentrating on venetian slatted blinds. There are other options around such as vertical roller blinds, Roman blinds etc. but we'll cover them elsewhere.

It’s a tough question the choice between ordering shutters or blinds for your home and one that we get asked a lot of course. As mentioned on the main page ‘choose between shutters and blinds’ a major contributing factor is what price you would like to pay for your window coverings. If you are looking for real budget coverings, in a standard size which you can cut down to fit your windows, then a type of blind will be your only option. You can even opt for temporary blinds which might last you for several years, not so temporaray! But hold on there, even with many budget blinds you’ll still be able to choose from a huge range of online suppliers as well as a huge range of styles, colors, materials and just about all you can imagine! You can get blinds at this range from around £6 per window, not bad huh? (see below for some links we've dug out for you)

If cost is your main driving factor, then blinds it is, and you get a wealth of choice in the budget area, right up to near shutter prices.

What you will not be getting on a seriously tight budget, is a great deal of access to wooden blinds, or for that matter wooden shutters, as these will set you back some more, but more of that later...

Overall aside from cost, choosing between shutters and blinds often comes down to a few design decisions. If you want modern stylish broad slats which create bold statements as part of your decor, you’ll probably be buying shutters, as blind slats tend to be restricted up to 60 or 70 mm each, which is about 2-3 inches maximum. What this means from a design perspective is that your blinds will have a lot of slats. They will create a feeling that might appear quite busy on a large window with really thin slats. This generally reduces light entering the room when the blinds are down - irrespective of whether they are open or closed, and really thin slats such as those you’ll find on real budget blinds create a very busy linear look to most rooms. Not a problem at all if that is the look you are after, or you have quite small windows, but beware of covering larger windows particularly in your most busy rooms with really budget blinds with thin slats, as you will have more chance of these breaking, and more chance of being slightly overawed by them in the long run as they are quite strong visually.

Think big! Bigger rooms, with bigger windows, means bigger slats on the whole! Not least this may be because you will find that blinds are restricted by the size of your windows. Many blinds companies and suppliers will only stock blinds which go up to around 2500mm square (2.5 metres, or 8 foot square). Pretty big, but at this size it will be a weighty operation lifting the blind, so you may find they stay closed a lot.

So, before exploring blinds further, lets look at the alternative briefly regarding these with plantation shutters and wider slats. With wooden shutters the chances are you will be able to find much wider slats. On the whole shutters are supplied in a frame so the slats are more stable and can get right up to around 115mm ( 4 or 5 inches). Nice big chunky slats on a small window can also look a little off as the other way round, however on a decent sized 1 or 2 metre window I personally think you have a real winner with broader slats.

Well, in this introduction we have covered:

• Budget. If you are on a real tight budget you can get cheap blinds from somewhere like here, or even temporary blinds from online retailers. You can of course if you are passing call in to that well know Swedish store and take a look at their prettygood range of cost effective blinds. Check them out here.
• Secondly we looked at window sizes. If you have really small windows you should on the whole opt for thinner slats. With larger windows you can consider broader slats. Huge windows won’t allow for blinds on the whole