Guides
Blackout behind plantation shutters: a guide for period homes
Plantation shutters give you wonderful light control, but even fully closed, a little light slips between the louvres. In a bedroom, especially in a period home where you would rather not touch the window, that can be the difference between a good night's sleep and a 5am wake-up. Here is how blackout works behind shutters.
By the Shutter Installation team · Updated 10 July 2026
Why shutters alone are not blackout
Closed louvres block most light, but the tilt mechanism and the small gaps at the edges let a thin amount through. That is by design: shutters are a light-filtering product, not a blackout one. For a room that needs true darkness, you pair the shutters with a separate blackout layer.
A reversible retrofit
We fit a slim blackout blind on the window behind the existing shutters, so the shutters stay exactly as they are and do the daytime work while the blind handles darkness at night. Nothing about the shutters is altered, and the blind can be removed later with no trace.
Period and conservation-area homes
In listed and conservation-area properties, reversibility matters: work should be undoable and should not damage original features. A blind fitted to the window rather than the shutter or the surround respects that. If you are unsure what your property allows, we can talk it through before anything is fitted.