Interior shutters were also popular in the colonial-era homes of New England, but in this case they were solid, designed to keep winter drafts at bay. Board-and-batten shutters were the norm in country dwellings, while interior shutters in finer houses featured raised panels. The latter could either be bifold, or slide into special pockets (called embrasures) built into deep window wells.
Unlike other window treatments, which were often combined to enhance their effects, interior shutters typically stood alone. “In all the finest rooms of the 17th and 18th centuries,” writes Edith Wharton in the 1902 guide The Decoration of Houses, “the inside shutters and embrasures of the windows were decorated with a care which proves that they were not meant to be concealed by curtains.”