I just took a couple of photos. They are from my phone, so quality is not great, but gives an idea of what they look like.
We did have security grills on our bedroom windows but I used to worry about how we would get out in a fire, so we removed them and installed these. We used to have eyelet curtains, but like the clean look. These photos are of shutters that had to sit proud of the window due to the window hardware. In other parts of the house, we have the shutters sitting inside the window opening, which I think is better, but not possible without changing all our hardware.
They are hinged on one side and key locked the other side. We have full sized french door (size of two normal doors) downstairs which are sitting inside the window frame which is more streamlined.
These were made by Guardian. We were convinced of their security aspect when we saw a photo of a shutter propped up like a ramp, with the front wheel of a large 4WD sitting in the middle of a shutter and it held the weight.
The shutters are operated by a key, which we keep in each bedroom near the beds, so that in the event of a fire, can be quickly used to open them.
We did look at (and price) shutters made of other materials, composite and timber, but these were by far the strongest, and some others were locked with a "star" key, similar to an allen key - not secure enough for us.
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I tried to attach a photo showing the lock up close, but having trouble. The lock sits half way up and you can see it in the bedroom photo.
We particularly love our bed sitting in the box bay window because we can just reach up and open or close the louvres without getting out of bed
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