Gainesville's Frequently Asked Questions About Shutters

For more than 33 years, we’ve heard every question about shutters imaginable from our customers in Gainesville. And we’ve collected the top ten of them here. Perhaps in these questions and answers you’ll find answers to questions of your own. If not, please don’t wait to contact Sunburst Shutters Gainesville directly. We’re here to aid 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 replicate 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. Additionally, 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 a variety of colors, materials, and unique patterns, turning 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 Gainesville neighborhood.

Draperies also are available in a wide spectrum 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, there’s no need to clean draperies for five years.

If you’re looking for a window treatment that lasts over 10 years, saves you actual bucks on your energy bills, and looks lovely on your windows, shutters are the choice for your home. Not only are shutters durable, but they’re also exquisite and energy efficient. Actually, Polywood shutters insulate up to 70% better than a comparable wood shutter. That's energy savings you can't get 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.

An inappropriately installed window treatment can be a hassle to open and can get damaged easily. We have an expert installation crew that comes to your home and installs your window treatment just right, making sure that each one functions perfectly – and doesn’t get damaged throughout.

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

Your plantation shutter slats – or louvers – can be moved without difficulty by pushing them up or down. Usually, a tilt rod mounted on the front of the shutters gives you control over 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 feel.

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

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

Plantation shutters are custom fashioned to fit your windows exactly. 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 gives you 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 home. We’ve seen it first hand in Gainesville!

A half shutter lets you have privacy on the bottom and leaves the top open for light and view. It’s called a café style shutter. But is it the ideal 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 fully finished look – and allowing you to 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. It’s also convenient during the day when the sun is preventing you from watching TV. And don’t worry about losing any of your view. A 3.5" or 4.5" louver will almost disappear when opened flat and gives you more than enough of a view to look through.

Simple! Call us at 813-602-5966 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 cover with shutters and bring samples of all of our shutter products and their available options. This allows us to provide you with the best shutter price for your project. Schedule your in-home consultation today!

Absolutely! There’s almost never a need to take out or do work on your existing window trim when you buy new plantation shutters. Natural Ovation wood shutters and premier Polywood shutters are available in an array of frame styles to fit easily into your current window trim. If your windows are trimless, we offer frame styles to install directly onto the drywall around your window to secure your stunning new shutters to your window opening.

Your Sunburst Shutters installation crew will measure each of your home’s windows during your free design consultation to make sure that your window trim is tastefully complemented by the frame of your new window treatment.

Sunburst Shutters Gainesville is happy to provide a range of window coverings made right here in the U.S.A. Polywood plantation shutters are not only 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’re choosing an all-American window treatment for your Gainesville home.

And Polywood isn’t alone in hailing from America. Our naturally beautiful Reclaimed Wood shutters are constructed with lumber harvested from sources across the country, from homespun Southern barn doors to beautiful New England fences and more.

The main differentiator between a shutter that’s stained or painted is how the shutter material interacts with the color. Paint sits on the top layer of the shutter, just coating the surface. Stains conversely, seep into the shutter, becoming a part of the natural wood or faux wood material.

Both methods come with their individual benefits. There are typically more color options for painted shutters. With stained shutters, the color doesn’t lie over the natural wood grain, so you’re able to see the random knots and bumps of the material without it being hidden by a layer of paint.

For your in-home shutter consultation, we’ll bring samples of all our color options right to your door so you can easily color match with your existing interior design.

The complete plantation shutter process, beginning with your initial consultation through installing the shutters, usually takes approximately four to six weeks on average. The process takes this long because our goal is to build shutters that are completely customized to your windows. To do that, we need to take exact measurements, use advanced software to design your shutters, assemble your brand-new shutters manually, and ship them to your home for installation. Wood shutters typically take longer than Polywood due to the extra steps needed to stain and treat the wood.

It does take some time, but it’s an investment that’s well worth it.

Yes, we do. We’d be delighted to show you our showroom so you can see our entire collection of shutters and window treatments. The showroom is located at , so feel free to visit anytime during our regular business hours to take a look for yourself.

Sunburst Shutters Gainesville offers a complete shop-at-home experience. We typically send one of our reps to you to take precise measurements of your windows, show you your options, and provide an accurate quote. The design consultation is totally free. That’s the best way to start your shutter project. If you’re just looking for a simple estimate, you can submit the measurements of your windows either by phone or through our contact form.

That’s up to your personal style. If you want to keep your existing trim, we can build your shutters to match your current trim. If you like our shutter frames better, then you can take out the existing trim—but it is not a requirement for shutters. If you want to go without trim or replace your trim, your Sunburst installer can help you choose the best option to fit your perfect vision.

If you’re an experienced handyman, you’re probably familiar with what goes into a shutter installation. However, installing shutters yourself may be a tad complicated for most Gainesville homeowners. We recommend leaving the installation to professionals that are certified and insured, so you won’t be at risk of damaging your shutters, your windows, or injuring yourself.

By far our most in-demand shutter products are our classic white Polywood® plantation shutters, and Ovation® real wood shutters.

Beyond that, the most common shutter configuration we sell is a 3 ½” louver, non-textured finish, with a Z-frame. If none of that makes any sense, that’s ok. We’ll be happy to show you what all those things mean in person. Set up a free home consultation and we’ll show you what would look best in your house.

Shutters with a smooth finish tend to look more modern and suave, while shutters with a textured finish look a little more natural. However the perks to each style of plantation shutter finish go a little bit farther, and ultimately it comes down to your own style.

Perks of a smooth finish for shutters – A smooth finish to your shutters give you a clean, chic, sophisticated look. If you don’t have any other wood surfaces like hardwood floors or furniture, you might 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 shutters with a wood grain finish – A textured finish on your shutters offers a more natural, rustic look to your shutters. That’s fantastic if you’re trying to bring the look of nature indoors, particularly if you want to match the look of your hardwood flooring. A wood grain on your shutter louvers will also make it more difficult to see dust, which means you can wait a little longer between regular cleanings. A wood-grain finish looks especially great on real wood shutters in Gainesville.

Usually, the bigger your window is, the more shutter panels you’ll want. The most ideal layout is to use one panel for windows up to 26 inches wide, two panels for windows up to 50 inches wide, and four for windows up to 98 inches wide.

Single wide panels are not as room-friendly as two separate panels. Oftentime, wider panels won’t fit flush against the wall due to their width. Multiple small panels resolve that.

For windows that you may 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 better support from the frame when you do open and close them.

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

At your complimentary shutter consultation, your Sunburst Shutters installer can help you narrow down your options from our extensive variety of Gainesville plantation shutters, featuring choices for panel width, stains, and custom mounts and frames.

So schedule your shutter consultation today by calling 813-602-5966 today.

Sunburst can help you find the ideal shutter for your rooms, regardless of how small your frame. We will use an outside mount installation that affixes to the trim or wall outside the window pane . Your shutters will still have equivalent capabilities and energy efficiency, and will tie in seamlessly into your design scheme.

If the louver is disconnected and jutting from the frame, you likely have a broken louver pin. To repair this you will want to take out the pin from both the louver and the stile with some needle-nose pliers or a utility knife. Once everything is withdrawn, stick the undamaged pin base into the same hole in the shutter stile, then slide the louver onto the pin. To acquire additional complementary louver pins, just call us at 813-602-5966.

The cost of plantation shutters hinges on the desired product line and window measurements. While we can give you a basic quote over the phone, complete costs are determined after our no cost in-person consultation. Call 813-602-5966 to make an appointment today.

Locate and pull out the damaged staple from the louver with a pair of needle-nose pliers. Then apply some adhesive (like wood glue or epoxy) to coat the legs of a replacement staple. guide the staple into the loop on the louver and direct its legs into the existing staple holes on the tilt rod. For new shutter staples, call us at 813-602-5966.

Polywood shutters are known as some of the safest window coverings in Gainesville. The cordless, durable design is safe for children and pets. The toxin-free and hypoallergenic paint, polymers, and materials will never peel or chip. And because Polywood is water and pest resistant, you’ll never have to wonder about termites, mold or wood rot.