A Walk Through the House, From Front Gate to Garden Door

We supply and fit made to measure shutters in Upminster RM14, with free measuring and free fitting. This page follows a large house in the order you meet it, from the front bay to the garden door, so you can plan every window in one go.

A big house means a lot of glass, and that changes how you buy shutters. Havering Council’s Hall Lane Policy Area covers about 56 hectares either side of Hall Lane and describes large detached and semi-detached homes in large gardens. Its Character Study also mentions larger homes around the station with very large back gardens. Front windows, stairs, back rooms and garden doors all need a decision, and each one pulls in a different direction.

We are London Blinds 4U. We supply and fit made to measure shutters across London, and we cover Upminster. The local facts below come from Havering documents, and we name the source each time. Where a rule is not ours to give, we point you to the person who decides.

Planning shutters in Upminster for the whole house, in one route

Start at the front gate and finish at the garden door. One visit covers every window you want, and then we agree an order with you. The route we walk looks like this:

1. The front bay and any other windows that face the street.
2. The stairs and landing window, which sit between floors.
3. The upstairs bedrooms, one window at a time.
4. The back rooms, such as a kitchen or dining room that look onto the garden.
5. The garden doors and any wide glazing at the rear.

Each stop has its own best style. The sections below take them in turn, and the order matters less than the plan.

Front bay shutters in Upminster for a semi set back from the road

Full height shutters are a good first choice for a front bay, because one set of louvres covers the window from sill to top. Havering’s Character Study describes Upminster’s neighbourhood as suburban housing, with semi-detached homes and front gardens. A front garden keeps you back from the pavement, but a lit room can still be seen from the street after dark. Tilt the louvres, the angled slats, and daylight comes in while the view is blocked.

You can read about full height shutters in more detail on their own page. If curtains hang in the bay now, our comparison of shutters against curtains sets out how the two differ in a London home.

A bay is three or more window sections that meet at an angle. We look at its shape. At the free visit we check:

• How many sections the bay has and how they meet.
• How far the window handles stick out into the room.
• Whether the frame is deep enough for the style you like.
• Which louvre size looks right: 47, 63, 89 or 114 mm.

There may be technical reasons why some styles are not suitable for a particular window. If that is the case with yours, we say so at the visit and suggest another style.

Landing, stairs and bedroom windows: upstairs shutters in an Upminster house

A landing window needs more thought than a front room window, because it sits above the stairs and you have to reach it to open and close it. Tell us how you will do that. Then a style and a fixing can be picked to suit. The same goes for an upstairs bedroom, where you may want to cut out the morning light.

Before we talk style, we look at these points:

• How high the window sits and whether you can reach the louvres from the stairs.
• Whether handles or stays reach into the room and could touch a closing shutter.
• How much light you want kept on the landing during the day.
• Whether anyone small will use the room.

On that last point, our guide to how shutters meet child safety rules explains the standard in plain words. In short, the standard louvre tilt on full height and tier on tier shutters is cord free. Some sliding, bi-fold or café style set-ups use a cord or chain depending on the product, so ask about the mechanism before you choose.

Garden doors and rear glazing: sliding and folding shutters in Upminster

Sliding or folding shutters can suit wide garden doors and long runs of rear glass, because the panels move aside instead of swinging out into the room. Our page on sliding and folding shutters shows how they work. Upminster’s larger houses can have a lot of glass at the back, and a single door may be only one part of it.

A garden door brings its own questions. We look at:

• Which way the door opens and whether the shutter panels would block it.
• Where the handle sits and how close the panels come to it.
• Where the panels would rest when they are open.
• Whether the door is used every day or only in summer.

The answers decide whether sliding or folding suits better, and sometimes whether a different style does the job. Better you hear that at the visit than after the order.

Corbets Tey cottages: what to ask Havering before fitting shutters in Upminster

If your home is listed, ask Havering’s planning service before anything is fixed inside it. Havering’s Corbets Tey conservation area appraisal says Nos. 1 to 8, small houses and cottages to the south of Harwood Hall Lane, are listed Grade II. Historic England says that carrying out unauthorised works to a listed building is a criminal offence. That decision is not ours to make. Get that answer before you order.

The appraisal also describes the windows in the area. It says Thompson’s Cottages has kept its sash windows at the first floor, and it mentions some modern replacement casements elsewhere. A sash window slides up and down in a frame, while a casement swings open on hinges, so the two can need different handling. The frame gets checked at the visit.

Here is a short list of questions to put to Havering:

• Is my home listed, and at what grade?
• Does fixing shutters to the window frame or reveal need listed building consent?
• Is the frame original, and does that change the answer?
• Who do I send the application to, and how long does it take?

Cranham bungalows and shutters: Havering’s Article 4 covers fences, not windows

Havering’s heritage page says Cranham’s Article 4 direction covers gates, walls, fences or other means of enclosure. That is about what stands at the edge of your plot, not about what hangs inside your window. So on Havering’s wording, the rule you may hear about in Cranham does not concern shutters. Check your own address with Havering before you decide.

The Character Study describes Cranham as a mix of suburban homes with a good number of bungalows, set on modest plots compared with the big back gardens around Upminster station. A bungalow puts the living room window at ground level, close to the garden path, so privacy is a natural thing to think about there. Café style shutters usually cover the lower part of the window, which keeps the top clear for light. Full height shutters cover the lot. We talk through both at the visit.

For a Cranham bungalow, the questions we put to you are short:

• Does the window face the road, the path or a neighbour’s fence?
• Do you want daylight at the top while the lower half stays private?
• Is the room a lounge, a bedroom or a kitchen, which affects the material?
• Does anything on the sill, such as a radiator below or a tall handle, get in the way?