When it comes to your window dressings, how can you possibly choose between curtains or blinds? What kind of curtain? Which type of blind? Perhaps what you hope to achieve with your widow dressing will help you decide. Do you need privacy, shade or both? Do you need to stop neighbours overlooking you, or are you in search of something that goes with your decor? Does durability matter more than style? Surely you can have both!

To help you make the choice that’s right for you, let’s compare two very different options: roller blinds versus shutters.

Roller blinds vs Shutters: why either one?

Will you go for the ease and simplicity of roller blinds, or the ease and simplicity of shutters? Roller blinds are easy to keep clean and maintain. As are shutters. Shutters will confound your cat – Madame Coco will find she can’t tear her way through them. A roller blind, made of fire and water-resistant material, is also highly durable.

I swear, there are differences. This blog is about roller blinds vs shutters.

Roller Blinds vs Shutters:  How much choice do you get?

Shutters come in many different colours. If you’ve got cash to splash, we can even match your shutter to your choice of Farrow and Ball paint. But when it comes to choice, the roller blind can’t be beat. The wide selection of fabrics, colours and patterns available, including your own if you wish, means roller blinds win over shutters on that point.

However, shutters soar ahead of roller blinds when it comes to configuration. A roller blind is either open, closed or somewhere in between, in which case there’s always some exposure to the glare of the sun or nosey neighbours. With shutters, you can choose where and how they fit on your windows. With tier on tier configuration, your shutters can be made to line up with your windows and frames, giving you substantial control over how much privacy and light you need at any one time. Meanwhile, cafe-style shutters finish approximately halfway up the window like, well, a cafe. As there are fewer shutters, this can be more cost-effective, giving you the convenience of shutters without the cost of covering the whole window. This is especially useful for privacy, should your living room be at the front of the house.

Roller Blinds vs Shutters: which is cheaper?

Shutters are considerably more expensive than roller blinds. If you’re planning on refreshing the whole house with new window dressings, then roller blinds are definitely more cost-effective than shutters. Shutters, however, are the only window dressing that adds value to your home, so you can consider them an investment.

Shutters pay for themselves in other ways too. Security shutters can withstand full-grown burglars hurling themselves against them. So when it comes to roller blinds or shutters, you may find yourself thinking of things beyond the obvious practicalities.

Roller Blinds vs Shutters:  you can always have both

Why not have the shutters for style, then you can include a roller blind and you’re probably wondering why anyone would do that. Both roller blinds and shutters can leave you with a small amount of light bleed. Slivers of light will sneak in through the slats of the shutters, and the mechanism on a roller blind takes up a few precious millimetres in the recess, again allowing a stray ray in.

You can hang a roller blind outside of the recess, and having it roll off the back of the tube will keep it as flush with the wall as possible, thereby eliminating any light bleed. This assumes you choose a blackout material, and there aren’t any characterful lumps in your wall pushing the blind out.

With shutters, it doesn’t matter how you install them, light will not be completely eliminated. If you need a blackout effect, then you can pop a roller blind behind the shutters. This will also double up on the insulation should you need it.

No one window dressing can meet all your needs. Doubling up, in this case with both roller blinds and shutters, will give you control over privacy and light and light bleed. You can spoil yourself, and have practical reasons for both shutters and roller blinds.