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Virginia Beach's Frequently Asked Questions About Shutters

For more than 1 year, we’ve received every question about shutters you can think of from our customers in Virginia Beach. And we’ve gathered 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 be reluctant to contact Sunburst Shutters Virginia Beach directly. We’re here to help you and happy to do so.

Schedule a shutter design consultation
 
That depends on how you desire the shutters to interact with your home’s décor. Do you want a shutter that contrasts your wall paint color and has clean lines? Polywood® plantation shutters are ideal for you. Or are you looking to duplicate 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 maximum 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. Store-bought blinds tend to deteriorate over time, with its strings snapping and the loops that hold the slats in place falling apart. Not to mention, they are difficult 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 an assortment of colors, materials, and unique patterns, transforming your window into artwork. By simply pulling up the fabric of the shade, your whole window is exposed and you can see out onto your Virginia Beach neighborhood.

Draperies also are available in a wide variety of color, fabric, and patterns. They are a traditional choice for a window treatment. Installing thick panels between the drapes and the window provides you with light and temperature block-out capabilities. And unlike other window treatments, you won’t have to clean draperies for five years.

If you want a window treatment that lasts beyond 10 years, saves you actual bucks on your energy bills, and looks charming on your windows, shutters are the choice for your home. Not only are shutters durable, but they’re also beautiful and energy efficient. In fact, Polywood shutters insulate up to 70% better than a similar wood shutter. That's energy savings you will miss out on with any other window treatment.

No other window treatment gives you control over privacy and light as plantation shutters do. And with their large louvers, Polywood plantation shutters give your space a clean in vogue feel whether they’re closed or open.

An inappropriately installed window treatment can be tough to open and can get damaged easily. We have an expert installation crew that comes to your home and installs your window treatment precisely, ensuring that each one operates smoothly – and doesn’t get damaged in the process.

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

Your plantation shutter slats – or louvers – can be moved effortlessly by tilting them up or down. Usually, a tilt rod mounted on the front of the shutters allows you to adjust the louvers. 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 in the industry. That’s why these plantation shutters are a permanent fixture that boosts your home’s resale value. Learn more about the durability of our shutters.

Plantation shutters are easy 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 wet cloth.

Plantation shutters are custom designed to fit your windows perfectly. They become a permanent fixture of your home, boosting its resale value. This means they can’t be moved from one house to another.

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

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

What it comes down to is 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 polished look – and allowing you to close the bottom louvers for privacy while leaving the top louvers open for light. At night, you have the option of closing the top louvers as well for privacy and security. This also comes in handy during the day when the sun is hindering 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 a lot of room to look through.

Easy! Call us at 757-210-6448 or fill out the form below to schedule your free in-home consultation, and we’ll handle 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. Once you’ve selected a shutter that matches your style, we can provide you with the most accurate shutter estimate for your project. Schedule your in-home consultation today!

Absolutely! There’s rarely a need to take out or alter your current window trim when installing new plantation shutters. Natural Ovation wood shutters and deluxe Polywood shutters are available in an array of frame styles to fit seamlessly into your existing window trim. If your windows don’t have trim, we offer frame styles to install right onto the wall around your window to fix your beautiful new shutters to your window opening.

Your Sunburst Shutters installer will measure each of your house’s windows during your complimentary in-home consultation to ensure that your new shutters will fit seamlessly with your window trim.

Sunburst Shutters Virginia Beach is proud to offer a collection of shutters made right here in the U.S. Not only are Polywood plantation shutters America’s #1-selling shutter, but they’re 100% made in America. Not only does that result in saving you money on unnecessary shipping and handling costs, it also gives you the bonus of knowing you’ve chosen an all-American window treatment for your Virginia Beach house.

And Polywood isn’t alone in hailing from the U.S.A. Our stunning Reclaimed Wood shutters are constructed using lumber harvested from places across the country, from rustic Midwest barn doors to sturdy Texas ranch fences and more.

The main divide between paints and stains for shutters is how the material of the shutter interacts with the color. Paint sits atop the material it’s coloring, covering the surface. Stains conversely, seep into the shutter, becoming a part of the natural wood or Polywood material.

Each method comes with its unique benefits. There are often a larger number of color choices for paints. With stained shutters, the color doesn’t lie over the natural wood grain, so you can see the natural grooves and ridges of the material without a layer of paint masking it.

When it comes time for your in-home shutter consultation, our team will bring samples of all our color options right to your door so you can perfectly match and complement colors with your existing interior design.

The whole plantation shutter process, beginning with your in-home consultation through installing the shutters, will take about four to six weeks on average. The process takes this long because we want to build 100% custom shutters for your windows. Doing that requires us to take precise measurements, make use of sophisticated software to design them, assemble your brand-new shutters manually, and ship them to you prior to installation. Real wood shutters typically take longer than Polywood because of the added steps of staining and finishing the wood.

It does take some time, but it’s definitely worth the wait.

Sunburst Shutters Virginia Beach offers a start to finish shop-at-home experience. So we send shutter expert to your door to get window measurements, discuss your options, and give you an accurate quote. The shutter consultation is totally free. That’s the most effective way to start your shutter project. If you only want a ballpark estimate, you can send us your window measurements through our contact form, or give us a call at 757-210-6448.
The answer will depend on your own taste. If you want to keep the trim you already have, we’re able to build custom shutters to match your current trim. If you like our shutter frames better, then you can remove the trim—but it is not a requirement for shutters. If you want to go without trim or replace your trim, we can help you pick the best option to match the vision you have in mind for your windows.

If you’re a seasoned DIYer, you’re probably familiar with some of the process involved in a shutter installation. However, taking on DIY shutters may be a tad tricky for most Virginia Beach homeowners. We would suggest leaving the installation to our certified and insured professionals, so you won’t risk damage to your shutters, windows, or injuring yourself.

Far and away our most in-demand shutter offerings are our classic white Polywood® faux wood plantation shutters, and Ovation® wood shutters.

More specifically, the most common shutter configuration we sell is a 3 ½” louver, smooth finish, with a Z-frame. If those words don’t mean anything to you, that’s ok. We’d be delighted to show you what all those things mean in person. Set up a free in-home consultation and we’ll help you figure out what will work best in your home.

Shutters with a smooth finish have a more modern look, whereas textured finish shutters look more natural and historic. However the benefits to both types of plantation shutter finish are a little deeper, and in the end come down to your own style.

Smooth shutter finishTextured shutter finish

Benefits of a smooth finish for shutters – A smooth finish to your shutters give you a solid, sleek, sophisticated look. If your home doesn’t have many other wood surfaces like hardwood floors or exposed beams, you may not want a smooth finish. A smooth finish makes dust easier to see, compared to a wood grain finish. We typically recommend a smooth finish for faux wood shutters like Polywood.

Benefits of shutters with a textured or wood grain finish – A wood grain finish on your shutters offers a more natural, wood-like look to your shutters. That’s great if you want to bring the look of nature inside, especially if you want to accentuate the look of your hardwood flooring. A wood grain on your shutter louvers can also make dust more difficult to see, meaning you won’t need to dust them as often as you would if they had a smooth finish. A textured finish looks especially great on real wood shutters in Virginia Beach.

For the most part, the bigger your window is, the more shutter panels you’ll need. The optimal design is to use a single panel for windows up to 26” wide, two panels for windows up to 50” wide, and four for windows up to 98” wide.

Single wide panels aren’t as user-friendly as two separate panels. Oftentime, wider panels can’t fit flush against the wall due to their size. Multiple smaller panels resolve that.

For any windows that you’ll want to open or shut regularly, you’re usually better suited with multiple panels, since it’s easier to open them and they have additional support from the frame when you do operate them.

With Sunburst Shutters Virginia Beach, any and all measurements for shutters will be done by our team for free as part of your in-home consultation. Even if your window is in a hard to reach place in your house or has a distinct shape, our shutter experts can get you an exact measurement so that the shutters you get will perfectly match up with your windows.

During your complimentary shutter consultation, your Sunburst Shutters rep can help you pick from our wide variety of Virginia Beach plantation shutters, featuring choices for louver size, stains, and custom framing options.

So set up your free consultation today by calling 757-210-6448 today.

Sunburst can help you pick the perfect shutter for your home, despite how thin your frame. We will utilize an outside mount installation that attaches to the trim or wall outside the window opening . Your shutters will still have identical functionality and energy efficiency, and will integrate perfectly into your design scheme.
If the louver is detached and jutting from the frame, you probably have a broken louver pin. To fix this you will want to extract the pin from both the louver and the stile with a set of needle-nose pliers or a utility knife. Once everything is taken out, stick the replacement pin base into the old hole in the shutter stile, then slide the louver onto the pin. To acquire replacement louver pins at no cost, just call us at 757-210-6448.
The cost of plantation shutters revolves on the chosen product line and window area. While we can present you a projection over the phone, detailed prices are determined after our complimentary in-person consultation. Call 757-210-6448 to make an appointment today.
Locate and pull out the damaged staple from the louver with a tool like of needle-nose pliers. Then dab on some adhesive (like wood glue or epoxy) to cover the legs of a new staple. guide the staple through the loop on the louver and slide its legs into the same staple holes on the tilt rod. For new shutter staples, call us at 757-210-6448.
Polywood shutters are some of the safest window treatments in Virginia Beach.  The cordless, durable craftsmanship is great for pets and kids.  The non-toxic and hypoallergenic paint and materials will never chip, splinter, or peel.  And because Polywood is moisture and pest resistant, you will not have to check for bugs, mold, or wood rot.