Fitting shutters to a bay window, done properly

Square bays

A square bay has flat sides meeting at ninety degree corners, common in Victorian and Edwardian terraces around Hythe and Folkestone. Because the angles are sharp, the corner posts are straightforward and the main decision is simply how many panels each face needs.

Angled bays

An angled bay meets at obtuse angles rather than square corners, which is the shape found in most 1930s and later semi-detached houses. The corner hardware has to be set to match the actual angle of the house, which is very rarely a clean, symmetrical figure even when the bay looks regular from the street.

Bow windows

A bow is a continuous curve made up of several narrow flat sections rather than two or three wide ones. This is the most labour-intensive bay to shutter well, because every section is its own aperture, and getting a bow to read as one smooth sweep of shutters rather than a row of separate boxes takes careful panel sizing.

T-posts and corner posts explained

A corner post is the vertical piece that lets two shutter frames meet at an internal angle without either frame twisting out of true. A T-post does the same job where a shutter run also needs to butt against a flat wall return partway along the bay. Neither is an optional extra: without the right post, panels in a bay will not close cleanly against each other.

• Corner posts join two angled frames at the point where the bay's faces meet
• T-posts join a shutter run to a flat wall section within the same bay
• Post colour and finish are matched to the panels so the join is as invisible as possible
• Post choice is decided at the survey, not guessed from a photograph

Choosing panel configuration face by face

It is common to run different configurations on different faces of the same bay. The two angled side faces might take café style shutters so a sofa or radiator underneath is not blocked, while the flat central face takes full height panels for maximum privacy on the section most visible from the street. This kind of mixed configuration is normal, not a compromise, and it is exactly the sort of decision that gets talked through face by face at the home consultation rather than assumed from a single measurement.

Why each aperture is measured on its own

Even a bay that looks perfectly symmetrical from the pavement rarely is once you measure it properly. Sills settle unevenly, plaster returns are rarely identical either side, and the two outer faces of a bay are frequently a few millimetres different in width from each other. Measuring each aperture individually, rather than dividing a total width by three, is what stops panels binding or leaving light gaps once fitted.

Living with shutters around a bay seat

Many bays include a built-in window seat or a radiator running beneath the glass, and this changes which configuration actually works day to day rather than just which one looks best in a photograph. Café style, dressing only the top half of each panel, is often the practical choice over a seat so nobody is climbing over louvres to sit down, while full height suits a bay used mainly for the view and evening privacy rather than daytime seating. This is one of the first things worth mentioning at the survey, since it can change the recommendation for a bay that would otherwise take full height panels by default.

Bay shutters in new build homes

New build bays, common on estates around Ashford, tend to be more consistently square and symmetrical than a period bay, since they are built to a repeated design rather than settled over a century. That does not remove the need to measure each face separately, but it usually means the corner angles are close to a standard figure, which can simplify the hardware and slightly shorten the survey.

Getting a bay quote you can trust

Because a bay is priced as several shutters rather than one, the quote will itemise each aperture. That is worth asking for if you are comparing quotes, since a total figure alone hides whether one company has priced the corners and posts properly and another has not.