Café style shutters dress the lower half of the window only — eye-level privacy from the street while the top stays open, bright and clear. A high-street favourite for kitchens, dining rooms and ground-floor windows, and typically the most affordable way to add shutters to a room.
Café style shutters cover only the lower half of the window — named after the Parisian cafés that used them to give diners privacy while keeping the room bright and the street in view.
A single row of panels sits across the bottom of the window, tilting for privacy at eye level, while the top of the window is left completely open — no shutter, no frame, nothing to block the light or the sky. It’s the most open, airy way to add shutters to a room, keeps a period window’s proportions on show, and because it dresses less glass it’s usually the most budget-friendly style too.
Café style is for windows where you want privacy at the bottom but light and view up top — and where keeping the room bright matters most.
Ground-floor rooms that face the street or a neighbour. Keep the worktop and table out of sight from the pavement while sunlight still pours in over the top — the classic café look.
Tall Victorian and Georgian windows where you don’t want to hide the upper glazing or the view. Café style keeps the architecture on display and lets the original proportions breathe.
Because it covers only the lower window, café style keeps rooms at their brightest and is usually the most affordable style — a smart way to add shutters to more windows for the same spend.
The big trade-off is coverage. Café style leaves the top of the window bare — that’s exactly what makes it bright, open and affordable, but it also means no privacy or light control up high.
Choose café style if you only need privacy at eye level, want to keep the room as bright as possible, and like the idea of covering less glass for a lower price.
Choose tier-on-tier if you want that same “open the top, close the bottom” flexibility but with the option to cover and darken the top too — it covers the whole window and costs a little more as a result.
Choose full height if you want full light and privacy control across the whole window, or a room you can fully darken — the most versatile all-rounder.
Every style is priced the same way: your window’s area in square metres × the material rate (PVC shown, from £127/m²). These are the exact prices our designer would quote today.
| Window (PVC) | Full Height | Tier-on-Tier | Café Style This page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average window 900 × 1,300 mm |
£149 | £149 | £127 |
| Large window 1,400 × 1,800 mm |
£320 | £320 | £160 |
Full height and tier-on-tier cover the whole window, so they cost the same — there’s no surcharge for the tier split. Café style covers the lower window only, so it’s billed on about half the area (small windows meet our 1 m² minimum). Prices include free mainland-UK delivery; hardwoods are £145–£164/m². See the full shutters cost guide.
Café style is priced on the lower window you cover, so enter the height of the shutter (not the whole window) for an estimate — or set it exactly in the designer. Small windows meet our 1 m² minimum order.
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