Making DIY shutters can be a rewarding project that not only adds charm to your windows but also offers privacy and light control. Whether your home style is modern or rustic, learning how to build shutters for windows can help personalize your space and may even increase your home's value. Crafting shutters yourself allows for customization in size, color, and style, making sure they perfectly match the aesthetic of your home. Taking on a project like building your own shutters can initially seem daunting. However, with the right guidance, materials, and a simple step-by-step approach, anyone can transform their windows
Today I'm answering ALL your questions about shutters! From their function, to the size they should be for your specific window, and sharing how we made our own DIY shutters for our farmhouse. If you've got shutters on your mind, it's interesting how much more likely you are to notice them as you're driving around
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When you think of period shutters and exterior blinds, you probably associate them with Cape Cods, farmhouses, even Victorians. The typical Arts & Crafts Bungalow or Midwest Prairie house has windows grouped horizontally, with large mullions—not the configuration for symmetrical shutters. Nothing can bring more value to your home then updating your curb appeal with beautiful exterior shutters.
Think about some buildings and houses you see daily while out or surfing the web. It’s hard not to say that many designs have improved. You can see how far architecture has come over the years. People are always looking to make the next best design for the world to see. Although, you don’t have...
I am super pumped to let you know that our homemade shutters are complete and have been boosting our curb appeal for almost a week. Aren't they bea-u-ti-ful? My amazing husband spent many man hours constructing these babies and I am so grateful to him. He pretty much took on this entire project by himself. I also owe a big thank you to my father-in-law for supplying us with all of the lumber, to our super nice next door neighbor for loaning us his planer and table saw, and to my father for helping Seth hang them. The lumber from my father-in-law was all rough-sawn so Seth used our neighbor's planer to smooth them down and ensure that they were all uniform thickness. It created a mountain of saw dust. Then he used a table saw to trim the sides of each board. Don't let my lack of words fool you. This was a lot of labor. Hours and hours. There were over 70 boards. But at the end of it, we had some super smooth (free!) poplar. Seth then followed this tutorial (thanks Ashley and Jamin!) to assemble the shutters. Since we were planning to paint them, we spent some time sealing all of the cracks with paintable caulk. I was having flashbacks to our old rotting shutters and wanted to make these as waterproof as possible. Seth then primed and painted them. We bought the same paint that we used for our front door (Valspar's Duramax Exterior paint in semi-gloss). The color is Knight's Armor by Olympic. My dad and Seth used 4" Tapcon concrete screws and our hammer drill to attach them to the house. There are three screws holding each shutter. Sadly, Seth could not find a countersink bit large enough to countersink the screw heads so he caulked over them (for more waterproof peace of mind) and then painted the caulk. If you're up close you can see where the screw heads are, but it's the best we could do. Seth is focusing in on the imperfections, but I think these shutters are such a vast improvement over what we previously had. (Is any DIY ever absolutely perfect?) They are so much more our style. Just ignore the continued presence of the ugly green wrought iron columns (they are up coming down next). A little more eye candy for you… …and a closer peek at our front door Christmas wreath that I didn't get around to blogging about and our new shiny doorbell. The wreath is a little asymmetrical and strange, but I love it anyway. Happy New Year!!!
When shutter rivets wear out, make new ones to repair an original hinge.
Adding shutters made our house a little more polished and cozy. After a few admirers of our humble farmstead suggested we put up shutters, Jack and I were determined to make it a reality. Whenever possible, we try to do our own woodwork to avoid the cost of buying materials and to add a personalized touch to the house. So we grabbed a few pieces of barn wood and got to work. If you're up for a Saturday project, you can make some of your own board and batten shutters for your house. It really isn't too difficult and these instructions can be modified to suit your needs from how wide you'd like your own shutters to whether or not you'd like a gap between the boards to the number of battens on each shutter (see photo example below). Example of different types of board and batten shutters to give you an idea of the variety. Photo source You'll Need: Tape measure, drill, screw driver, maker, etc Lumber Exterior, rust-proof screws Wood glue Exterior Paint 1. Measure the height of all the windows that you'd like shutters for, adding an additional inch or so for a bit of wiggle room. Also determine how wide you'd like your shutters to be (for example: our windows are several different heights but we decided to make all the shutters twelve inches wide, regardless of the height). 2. Cut six pieces of wood the height of the window plus one inch (three pieces for each side of the window). The wood should also be an equal width. Every pile of six was to make two shutters for either side of each window. 3. Cut six pieces of wood for the battens (about two inches wide) to join the shutters together (these six pieces will be the narrower, shorter pieces of wood running perpendicular to the shutters to hold them together). The battens should be equal in length to the desired width of the shutters (so if you'd like your shutters to be twelve inches wide, each piece should be twelve inches long. Also, don't forget to take into account whether or not you'd like a small gap between each piece of wood on the shutters--if you do, the measurement of the gap will need to be included). 3. Begin assembling the shutters. Equally measure where each batten will be placed (top, middle and bottom) and attach securely with wood glue and screws. 4. If you'd like gapped shutters, making a crude jig may be helpful--it allows for the boards to be spread to the correct width and the center board to be centered (see photo below). 5. Paint shutters with exterior paint. Allow to dry before attaching to the house (we discovered it was easier to paint the pieces before assembling because we chose to have a gap between our boards. However, either painting before or after assembly did not affect the final product, gap or no gap, only the time it took to paint them all). 5. Attach shutters securely to the house. They can be hinged but we chose to simply screw them in with sufficiently long exterior screws. 6. Stand back and enjoy your handiwork! The finished product. Feel free to comment if you have any questions!
I am so thankful for my house--but I hate the front exterior. I always have. It took me forever to even figure out how I could make it look pretty at all (Update: Here is what I decided to do!), but I always knew I wanted to add and paint vinyl shutters and window boxes.
Top Phoenix life and style blog, Love and Specs, features how to make your own DIY Board and Batten Shutters. Click now for all the details!
Transform the exterior of your home with custom cedar shutters. Our DIY guide makes it simple to create stunning shutters in just a few days.
I knew the workshop needed shutters. There was too much siding and the windows weren't "substantial" enough...shutters would balance everything out. So this is a story about the shutters that Heidi built. Not jack. Oh yeah, did I mention they cost me less than $5 per shutter to build?! You should need only one 8' or 10' (depending on your shutter size) pine 1x4 per shutter. That's cheaper than a large pumpkin spice latte with an extra shot of espresso! I was determined to build these shutters 100% by myself, no help from Brent. Seriously, how hard can shutters be?! Building them wasn't tricky, but the process of assembling was a little harder than I thought. To begin, I took some measurements next to a window to determine how tall and wide the shutters needed to be. I decided to make them the same height as the top of the window trim and then stop them just above the window sill at the bottom. Here's my reasoning for that...if we pretended these shutters were able to close over the window, like their original intention, the shutter would almost rest on top of the sill, not cover the sill. Since I knew I was going to use 1x4's to build the shutters, I just needed to determine if I wanted the shutters to be 3 boards wide or 4, to minimize the amount of cutting needed. 3 boards wide looked like it would be perfect. I wanted to begin by cutting my 1x4's to the correct height first. These happen to be 31.5 inches. I began by trimming a half inch off of the end of my 1x4 to square it up. Now here is a tiny tip. Since I needed to make 8 shutters and each shutter would be three 1x4's wide...I was going to need to cut this same length 24 times. Brent said instead of measuring and then cutting each piece, we needed to set up a "stop". See that short piece of wood clamped to the table on the left side of the picture? That's the stop. Instead of measuring each piece, you just slide it to that piece of wood and make your cut. After cutting all 24 of my pices, I needed to figure out how wide to cut the piece that would go across the top and bottom of the shutter to hold the whole thing together. I just laid my 3 pieces out and left a small gap between each one. When I had the spacing that I liked, we measured across the middle to get a length. Using the same process as before, I set up a stop and cut 2 pieces for each shutter, so 16 total. Brent isn't actually doing anything, just posing for a photo. Owen is learning the ropes. Here are all of my pieces, ready for assembly. I laid one out to make sure everything was going to fit together. At this point I was singing, "perrrrrfeeeecccct!" Brent gave me another tip here, but did not, for the record, touch my wood (he he he). He said to get the two outside pieces screwed together first, and then slip the middle piece in last and just eyeball it to make sure you have the same gap on each side. Then you aren't trying to hold three pieces steady at once. After I measured and marked 4 inches from each bottom to determine where the cross bar would go, I flushed up the edges and clamped it together. Then I held a piece at the ends to make sure they were flush there as well. This took a little adjusting to get them perfect. Here's what it looked like all clamped together. Here's the important part...flip it over!! That way the screws will go in from the back of the shutter and you will not see any screws from the front!! My mind wandered off on a few of my shutters during this step and I forgot to flip...so those shutters ended up on the backside of the shed where we can't see them. Oops. I used 1.25 inch exterior screws, two in each board. 12 total in each shutter. In this next photo, you can see how I have screwed the outside pieces together and am lining up the center piece. I just did the best I could to eyeball it and then sent a few screws through to finish her off. And this is what they look like assembled. Adorbs. Time to really finish them now. Owen's job was to give them a light sanding to remove any rough spots. Here is my primer of choice. I use it for interior and exterior projects-but not for cabinetry. I like to use an oil based primer for that. After I had applied the first coat of color, you could see white lines in the vertical spaces between the boards where my brush couldn't reach. I found some light blue spray paint left over from a previous project and used it to hit the vertical lines. My top coat of paint covered the spray paint color. A person could have prepainted all of the boards before assembly to avoid this problem, but I think that would taken longer. I did allow Brent to hang them. Since cement board is so hard he has to pre-drill holes. He just held the shutter up to the position we wanted and drilled through the shutter and the siding. Then just sunk a screw in. One on top and one on the bottom. These are the 3 inch screws he used. And done! Halleluja!! I will probably dab a bit of paint on the screws so they aren't as noticeable. UPDATE** The workshop is done - see the final pics here!
Thinking of sprucing up the exterior of your home with some shutters? (get ready… here comes a 2 minute rant!!) Please, please, please read these shutter do’s and don’ts before you start! Hopefully then you can avoid the same mistakes so commonly found with shutters in the Midwest!! I’ve traveled across the USA, coast-to-coast, East-to-West […]
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