Kensington Apartment

The Brief

A private buyer completing the refurbishment of a three-bedroom apartment in a Victorian mansion block in Kensington came to us through an interior designer referral. The apartment had original sash windows throughout and the brief was to treat each room with plantation shutters in a consistent style — bespoke rather than off-the-shelf, in a custom colour matching the joinery colour specified by the designer for the apartment-wide scheme.

The Solution

We specified full-height MDF plantation shutters in a solid panel configuration for the bedroom windows (where privacy and blackout were priorities) and bi-fold shutter panels for the drawing room and dining room, allowing the shutters to fold fully clear of the glazing when open. All shutters were spray-painted in a satin finish matching Farrow & Ball’s estate emulsion ‘Wimborne White’ — a slightly warm off-white that coordinates with the plasterwork colour throughout the apartment.

The louvre tilt is motorised throughout, controlled via wall switches in each room and integrated into the apartment’s smart home system through a Somfy io-homecontrol hub. The louvres can be angled to any position remotely, and a morning “wake” scene gradually opens them from fully closed over a fifteen-minute period. The fold mechanism on the drawing room shutters remains manual — the client preferred a physical action for opening and closing the full panels.

Bespoke Construction

Victorian sash windows are rarely square — each bay required precise measurement and in several cases the frame was built to accommodate a slight lean in the reveal. All shutters are made to measure and adjusted on-site during installation. The frames are fixed directly to the window reveal with concealed fixings; no external brackets or visible metalwork.

The louvre width is 76mm throughout — appropriate to the scale of the Victorian windows without looking either delicate or heavy. We presented a physical sample board with louvre widths from 47mm to 89mm before the client confirmed the specification.