Is that what you read, when you choose too have, your reconstituted crap laminate flooring, & aluminium shutters.
I’m a Decorator, your father was a craftsmen & a tradesman, you don’t have too live in a museum too have traditional materials in your home, you just have too treat them with respect, if it’s 300 years old you treat the timber with respect, prepare it well, & with the correct products it will last, no just follow the guy up the road and go for the easy, quick solution. You still have no soul. But your happy, with that empty hollow sound of your flooring because it was cheap & easy for you too fit, you could of fitted some solid oak, beach, rosewood, teak. Or restored the existing boards, what you have done is vandalism.
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Might I suggest that this thread has run its course… and 
shall we all move on to something else… ???
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Clearly you know your stuff…there is no doubt about that.
What I am saying is understand more your French market and do not concentrate solely on expats. Two very different markets. Really !! The needs and desires of the French market is very different to that of the Expat market and probably more profitable.
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I am French. I don’t like volets roulants or pvc or alu, nor do my family in their Haussman house in the 7ème…
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My requirements are far more like those of my French neighbour than the expats up the road. There are a huge number of generalisations being thrown around. By the way my neighbour’s house is often referred to as being like a museum; that is nothing to do with her living in a third class hovel it’s because her traditional house is tastefully decorated and contains period furniture, bricolage and stone floors while remaining a comfortable, warm home. Outside it’s beautiful too with no, plastic, aluminium or British paint in sight.
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My OH (French) loves them…so it seems most in Paris.
I don’t make the rules !!! Just telling how it is.
Some do, some don’t. I expect that depending on whereabouts you are and who you know, ‘most’ will choose one or the other. Confirmation biais at work.
eg I know an awful lot of people and I know only one family who have volets roulants électriques and that is only in their maison de campagne because it is quite new and it makes it harder to burgle.
I have my shutters and windows made by my ébéniste and they are blue because shutters chez moi in the Var tend to be blue so that’s how I like them: and they suit the colour of stone my old (400) house is made of and contrast nicely with the Virginia creeper all over it.
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Actually I had fitted PVC windows to a 500 year old property, as have most people in the street. The houses still look cute. They’re not intended to be show houses or museums, they’re houses to be lived in, to raise kids in in some cases, to come home to after work, and generally lead a full, active and normal life. I like my house but I don’t worship it and I don’t want to spend a fortune on it. The old windows were draughty, I wanted to get rid of the draughts and improve insulation, simple as that. I guess the same applied to the neighbours when they changed theirs. The mairie doesn’t have a problem with it, Bâtiments de France doesn’t have a problem with it. So congratulations on your commission to refurbish a large property but please recognise that not everybody has the same priorities.
PS My shutters are wooden and will stay wooden, anything else would look just wrong.
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I prefer to press one button and the house is closed.
I like the idea of not having to spend 20 minutes every night closing shutters whilst trying not to trap or cut my fingers off and letting mosquitoes in at the same time. Likewise in the morning.
I don’t also have to worry about painting them every 5-10 years either.
I think most in France would agree.
Blue shutters !!! They should be banned. What is wrong with grey ? Everything is grey these days in France. Lol.
I spent time with my elderly French relatives a couple of weeks ago. They are in their '80s and closing/opening the shutters on the ground floor of their large house is part of their routine. If I suggested that life would be simpler with electric roller shutters they would probably reply that I will be telling them to eat slice bread and drink Red Bull with their microwaved evening meal next. I don’t believe that you speak for most of France and luckily tradition is important to many people here.
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Your family are in their 80’s. Are they representative France ?
Young French families want modern. They are the buyer’s of today.
Except a high proportion of young French families rent not buy.
It’s funny how you refine your answers like that. You claimed that you were speaking on behalf of the French now you are making claims for the young French. Please stop generalising, some, many people even think like you do, many more do not. You are beginning to act more like a troll than a genuine contributor.
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For what it’s worth, I’ve painted my wooden shutters Provence vert, look bloody good on my old stone house. You can shove your PVC and aluminium stuff where the sun doesn’t shine. You get shot in our commune if you fit plastic windows.
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Blue shutters are supposed to be less attractive to insects.
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Andy, do you advertise on other forums?
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Sorry for generalising, it is just what I have picked up along the way. Although, I have mostly lived in cities and large towns in the banlieue, but also the country. Like I said earlier, if you watch ‘chasseurs d’appart’ on M6 all the buyers are looking for the same type of product. It does not matter if it is an old house or a new house, they all want modern interiors and mod cons. When I first came to France the shelves were full of ‘old’ renovation type magazines. Today, most have been replaced by ‘new build’ or architect house type magazines. Even the renovation magazines tend to be focused on transforming an old into a modern house with modern materials. My friend (early forties) lives in a maison de maître and she dreams of being an architect type cube type house which are all the rage now. The trouble with old houses is they tend to have awkward configurations. Buyers what a large ‘piece a vivre’ which a lot of old houses don’t have so you have to start knocking walls down in order to achieve that. That is why (among other reasons) new builds are so popular.
Reading this thread there does tend to be of ‘expat’ snobbery towards certain things. I mean seriously, there is nothing wrong with PVC windows. I have never met anyone who thinks they are an inferior product or it is not the ‘done thing’.
Regarding the “discussion” of wood v man-made products for shutters…
I feel that it is very much up to each individual to make their choice… providing that choice is not in breach of any local regulations. Some folk have very strong ideas on what should and should not be done… and can put forward their strong arguments of support…fair enough… BUT, we are all individuals and can, and do, make up our own minds … No-one should be denigrated for that.
As it happens, we changed huge, heavy wooden doors for an electric roller-shutter on the garage. Out of absolute necessity… my husband was recovering from a heart attack and I was in a wheelchair … neither of us could manage to open/close the existing doors. I was sad to see them go, as they were definitely in character with the rest of the old building… but… needs must…
Quite possibly… years in the future… someone will choose to put the old-style wooden doors back on…that won’t worry me…
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Blue definitely works. Ours were a green colour previously which the little blighters loved.
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"When I first came to France the shelves were full of ‘old’ renovation type magazines. Today, most have been replaced by ‘new build’ or architect house type magazines."
Well you have to reverse the trend every so often don’t you, or people would be content with what they had and the home improvement market would dry up.
I’m sure you’re right Mark and there are people who really do dream of cube type houses and ultra modern interiors because it strikes a chord with them, and others who dream of whatever they’re told to dream of and like whatever they’re told to like. Then there are those who don’t follow trends and would hate to live in a house with no soul. But overall I still think that there a relatively low level of interest in renovation and aspirational architecture amongst French home-buyers. They favour new-builds because of the financial incentives (you get a better mortgage deal on eco-efficient homes) and because new-builds are practical and built in a sensible place not in the middle of nowhere.
But I honestly don’t think major home transformations for purely aesthetic or aspirational reasons are something the average normal working family would ever contemplate. I don’t see it round here. There are some immaculate, very well-maintained traditional properties but they don’t tend to have their insides ripped out and replaced by modern. There’s a magnificent very big house just down the road and the owners recently had it entirely re-roofed with patterned tiling in the original style, it looks absolutely beautiful and must have cost a fortune, but they haven’t messed with the inside. Different priorities.