Take your home’s design into the future with innovative plantation shutters from the central coast. Our shutters will elevate your home’s aesthetic by creating an effortlessly artful interior with the play of light and shadows. Read on to find out how we combine form and function while keeping prices competitive so that you won’t have to break the bank when you decide to enhance your home.
Premium Basswood is the best timber for constructing internal plantation shutters due to its lightweight and affordability, compared to fellow hardwoods Western Red Cedar, Maple or Oak. Although there are less expensive timbers again such as Poplar and Paulownia (Phoenixwood) readily available in the window furnishings industry, it is worth understanding the differences in hardwood so you can assist your customer to make a well informed decision, and protect your reputation in doing so.
POPLAR
Although Poplar is a hardwood, it ranks among the very softest woods in the world. This makes it prone to dents and damage if not handled with care. Poplar can be moderately heavy for plantation shutters and limitations may call for additional rails or stiles to provide rigidity, depending on overall width or height of a panel.
Poplar is not uniform in colour, ranging from very pale to green and almost purple due to mineral steaks. This makes it unsuitable for staining and should only ever be painted as a plantation shutter. Native to the northern hemisphere, Poplar is widely available but less costly than Basswood. Best suited for millwork and trims that are nailed in place, Poplar produces a lesser quality shutter than other hardwoods.
PAULOWNIA
Also called Phoenixwood, Paulownia is another hardwood that is very soft and susceptible to dents and dings. Prone to splintering and chipping whilst sanding and sawing, Paulownia is extremely lightweight and lends a balsa, or toyish feel to a finished product.
Commonly used for plywood, veneer and guitar bodies, Paulownia has a coarse, uneven texture and very large pores that give the wood a striped, porous look. This means after sanding, the finish maintains a somewhat bumpy appearance. Native to China and readily found across Asia, Paulownia is an extremely fast growing tree, making it a less expensive timber.
BASSWOOD
As one of the straightest of hardwoods, Basswood has excellent dimensional stability and strength and does not warp, making it a superior timber for shutters and the preferred choice of quality manufacturers. Basswood has tight pores and a fine uniform texture with an indistinct grain. This means it can be sanded and painted or stained to a very smooth and consistent, high quality finish.
A very lightweight hardwood, Basswood cuts easily with, and across the grain and has superior gluing and screwing properties. Basswood has no odour, not even during woodworking and is very low in resin and tannins that often bleed through paint finish with other timbers if not prepared accordingly.
Basswood is a fast-growing tree, native to most of the northern hemisphere. Responsible forest management balances growth throughout the logging process, making Basswood a renewable resource, with the U.S alone growing almost twice the amount as it harvests.
OPUS PREMIUM BASSWOOD SHUTTERS are constructed with mortise and tenon joints and guaranteed by our 5 year manufacturer’s warranty.
Choose from modern flat stiles and frames or traditional beaded profiles. The luxury satin paint finish is available in 5 modern colours and 12 stains, or you can custom colour to your specification. Shutters are available in 64mm, 89mm or 114mm louvres and can be configured as hinged or bifold hinged panels, track bifold and sliding shutters, and a variety of special shapes. Track systems include clear anodised aluminium top and bottom track with high quality hardware, and box out boards are made from the same quality basswood.
