Shutters for short-term rentals and rental properties: durability, light control, no cords

Updated October 22, 2026

The short version: shutters suit rentals for practical reasons: no cords, nothing to launder, a surface you can wipe down in minutes, and a look that stays the same from guest to guest. They don’t make a room fully dark, and no evidence we’ve found says they lift bookings or rates. Buy them for what they do, not for a promise.

Who this is for

Two kinds of owner read this guide. One rents by the night: a guest suite, a basement apartment, a cottage, a condo listed on Airbnb or a similar platform. Airbnb alone reports “5.5M+” hosts and “9M+” active listings worldwide, and says the typical US host earned “$15.6K” in 2025^[1]. Those are Airbnb’s own figures, published on its newsroom; we quote them for scale, not as a forecast for anyone’s unit.

The other rents by the year: a landlord with a duplex, a few condos, or a suite in their own house. Their questions overlap with a host’s but aren’t the same. A host turns a unit over every few days; a landlord turns it over every few years, and in between it has to survive one household’s daily life. Both want window coverings that don’t become a repair call.

What guests say they look for, and what’s missing

Airbnb’s Resource Center publishes a guide for hosts on “the amenities guests want”^[2]. Its list of the most-searched amenities is: a pool, free parking, wifi, air conditioning or heating, a kitchen, a hot tub, a washer or dryer, self check-in, TV or cable, and a BBQ grill^[2]. It goes on to essentials, safety items such as smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, a fire extinguisher and a first-aid kit, accessibility features, a remote-work section that mentions good lighting and a workspace, and a section for families and pets that includes child-safety items, a high chair and a travel crib^[2].

It doesn’t mention blackout curtains, blinds, shades, shutters, room darkening, or window coverings of any kind. We read that as a plain answer: on the platform’s own evidence, window coverings aren’t a feature guests search for. So this guide makes no claim that shutters will win you bookings, a higher nightly rate or better reviews. If a guest notices them, good. The reasons to buy are below, and they’re mostly yours, not the guest’s.

No cords, which matters most where you can’t supervise

A rental hosts children you’ve never met, in a room you won’t be in. That’s the strongest practical case for shutters: they have no lift cords, no loops and no free ends. You tilt the louvers with a rod on the front or back of the panel, or, with hidden tilt, by moving the louvers themselves.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission’s advice is to go cordless with window coverings to avoid the risk of strangulation to infants and children^[4]. In Canada, the Corded Window Coverings Regulations limit any cord a child can reach on a covering sold in the country^[5]. Our cord safety guide sets out both countries’ rules in detail. For a host, the point is simple: Airbnb’s own family list includes child-safety items^[2], and a window covering with nothing to pull is one fewer thing to childproof.

If you’re replacing old corded blinds in a unit, take them down rather than leaving them behind the shutters. A cord that’s hidden from you isn’t hidden from a toddler.

Durability: what wears, and what doesn’t

Our shutters are solid American poplar, painted, on hinged panels. In a rental, three things decide how well they hold up:

• Louver grip. Louvers stay at an angle because something grips them where they meet the frame. Heavy-handed guests and tenants wear that grip down over time, and dry winter air loosens it further. Our loose louvers guide explains how it’s restored on most shutters and what to check first.
• Hinges and magnets. Panels swing open to clean the glass or open the window. A panel that’s yanked or hung on can work its hinge screws loose; tightening them is a routine turnover check.
• The paint. It’s the surface everyone touches. Wipe marks off rather than scrubbing, and keep a little touch-up paint in the same colour for chips. Our repair guide covers what’s worth fixing and when a panel should be replaced.

Wood also moves a little with the seasons. The National Research Council of Canada puts the moisture of wood in heated buildings at about “6% in winter to 12% in summer”^[6]. A louver that’s a touch stiffer in summer and looser in winter is that movement, not a defect. It’s worth telling a long-term tenant so it doesn’t become a maintenance request.

One limit to respect: painted wood doesn’t belong in shower spray. In a rental bathroom with a tub or shower, keep shutters away from the wet zone, or wait for our aluminum interior shutters, which are coming in 2027 for humid rooms. There’s no price for them until launch.

Light control, honestly

Louvers give a rental two things fabric doesn’t: you can angle them to let light in while blocking the view from a street or a neighbour’s window, and you can close them for privacy without making the room feel shut. Wide louvers let more light and view through when open; narrower ones look more traditional.

What they don’t do is make a bedroom pitch dark. When louvers close, light still finds the edges of each louver and the gaps around the panels. For a guest who works nights, a nursery, or a bedroom facing a street light, that matters. The honest options are a lined curtain over the shutters, or a sentence in the listing that sets expectations. Remote workers, a group Airbnb’s guide singles out with “good lighting” and a workspace^[2], tend to like louvers for the opposite reason: they can take the glare off a screen without turning on a lamp.

Where the rules shape the unit

In British Columbia, the province’s principal residence requirement limits short-term rentals, where it applies, to the host’s own home, described as “the usual place where they make their home day-to-day”, “plus one secondary suite or accessory dwelling unit on the same property”^[3]. Check the province’s page for whether it applies in your community and what counts. For a BC host, the typical short-term unit is therefore a suite or a laneway home on the same lot, often a basement or a small separate building. Basement windows are small and sometimes set deep in the wall, which is worth knowing before you measure.

Rules elsewhere differ by city, province and state, and change often. We don’t summarize them here, because a summary that goes out of date is worse than none. Check your local rules before you set up a unit, not after you’ve furnished it.

Which rental, which priorities

What shutters cost for a whole unit

These are live prices from our price list for painted poplar in the basic build (flat frame, 3½ in louvers), the same numbers the designer gives:

• A one-bedroom suite (a 36 × 48 in bedroom window, a 72 × 60 in living room window and a 24 × 36 in kitchen window): $1,290 – $1,590, or $1,850 – $2,280 CAD in Canada.
• A two-bedroom unit (two 36 × 48 in bedroom windows, a 72 × 60 in living room window, a 24 × 36 in kitchen window and a 72 × 80 in sliding door): $2,700 – $3,300, or $3,870 – $4,730 CAD.
• Just the bedroom of a suite, a single 36 × 48 in window: $320 – $400, or $460 – $570 CAD.

Your own window sizes, frame and louver choices move these numbers, so price your unit in the designer. We don’t estimate a payback period or a return on the spend: nothing we’ve found supports one, and we won’t invent it.

Ordering for one unit or several

• Measure every window, in every unit. Identical floor plans still have openings that differ by a fraction of an inch. Our measuring guide takes five measurements per window.
• Pick one colour and louver size for the whole property. It makes touch-ups and future replacements simple, and the units photograph the same.
• Do the bedrooms first if the budget is tight: they’re where privacy, light and cords matter most. Add the living areas later in the same colour and louver.
• Write a two-line turnover check for your cleaner: dust and wipe, and tell you about any louver that won’t hold its angle or any panel that sags.

The bottom line

Shutters earn their place in a rental through what they save you: no cords to worry about, nothing to launder or rehang, and a surface that wipes clean between guests or tenants. They aren’t a booking feature on the evidence we’ve found, and they don’t make a room fully dark. If those two facts don’t put you off, a whole unit is a fixed, known cost you can price today.