Is there anything better than improving your home’s curb appeal? Doesn’t making your house look prettier from the street just make you feel like you’ve just moved up a notch in the world? It might be just me, but I love a good curb appeal booster, and the only thing better is if it’s a curb appeal booster project that I can DIY. I mean that I can DIY. So it’s gotta be easy. And these shutters are!
We’ve just installed one set so far on our house, but already I can see what a difference they make. We have a total of 8 shuttered windows on our house, so doing the rest of them won’t be a huge project and we should be able to show you the whole before and after fairly soon! For now though, let’s focus on the one set on the windows by the deck. We recently remodeled and stained our deck. You can read all about that and see the full before and after here.
Here’s our deck with the old green shutters. We still have a bit of work to do on that area but it really does look a million times better back there.
The problem with these shutters is that they’re built right into the siding so they look really really fake. They look OK from a distance, but they really bugged us. Also, white houses with dark green shutters are really popular around here and we didn’t want to be “one of the green houses” on our street anymore.
And now here’s how that window looks with new, slightly less fake-looking DIY shutters!
Just so much nicer, right?
Here’s how we made them in like 5 minutes flat!
Chris picked up some 1×12 rough cut pine. The roughness of it gives it extra farmhousey appeal! We cut it down into 5″ strips. You can do any size you like, we just went with a size that would cover up our existing shutters. We made our shutters 3 boards wide and then put one board across the top and the bottom for a classic look.
Then we clamped them all together and secured it all with a few screws.
We cut a couple of little measury pieces to put up against the top and bottom cross pieces so we could make sure they were the same distance from the ends on both sides. We didn’t want any shifting to happen while we were adding the screws!
It worked! We ended up with two perfect shutters.
Next we just painted them grey and hung them by screwing them straight into the existing shutters.
Bam! Updated!
This really is one of the easiest little building projects you can do and it’s a great one for beginners, but what an impact it makes! If you feel like your house could use a bit of a curb appeal boost, why not try adding some shutters in a color you love?
More Like This!
- How to Paint a French Door Without Losing Your Mind
- Everything You Need to Know Before Installing 12×24 Tile
- Thrift Store Home Decor Finds You Should Never Pass Up
- How to Age Terra Cotta Pots With Paint
- Faux Stone Veneer Wall Reveal
- Efficient Door Painting Tips
Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.