Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Porch Shutters

My parents decided to take down the old wooden shutters off of their house, and replace them with the prepainted plastic ones. I'm not a fan of plastic shutters, but it made a huge difference in the appearance of their home. My dad called me when they removed the shutters, and asked if I knew anyone that might want the wooden sets, or should he just trash them.  I gasped!

"I'll take them!"

There are about 10 shutters, and so far I've managed to actually complete a project using 3 of them!

 My inspiration was from Kevin and Layla, and this porch makeover that they created,


Of course, I have a deck, not a screened in porch, but none the less, here's my makeover.

Porch Before:


The shutters were peeling, and one side was forest green, the other about 6 shades of blue. The shutters are probably from the 1950's when my parents house was built, and I probably was scraping lead paint off! (I hope not)



Two of the shutters were a pair, and one was an oddball that was a wider.
One of the shutters was damaged, so Scott cut off the bottom louver, and replaced the cap with a spare piece of wood from our garage.


I primed the shutters, then painted each a different color.

The paint was all  free!
Autumn Fire from Valspar, which I thought would be more reddish, and ended up being more pinkish- BUT I love it!! This was a sample that I received from Valspar's Facebook giveaway a few months ago. 

Cantalope from Glidden, was my favorite of the three colors, it's soo pretty.

Lemon Ice fro Glidden is a very very very pale yellow. I like it a lot but was hoping for a brighter color.

After the shutters were painted, we attached them together by running a strip of wood across the back top and bottom, and screwed the wood on.

Then, we attached another length of wood onto our brick wall with a hammer drill and masonary bits. And used some crazy looking blue screws to attach it. I'll have to ask the name of them if someone really wants to know.



Next, we put the triple shutters up on the wall, with the wood sitting on the top of the wood strip that we mounted to the brick.

Lastly, we screwed the wood from the back of the shutter into the wood mounted to the brick.
By doing this, there are no visible screws on the shutters.


Then, I put my table back, put some colorful waterproof pillows on the cushions, added a hurricane with a citronella candle, and instant Cute sitting area on the deck!!

I have two hanging vases that I will attach to the shutters, just as soon as I can find them, with either single stem flowers, or candles!


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