shutters!

our house was designed to have shutters and the windows just didn't look right without them. since we can't stand vinyl stick-on shutters and didn't want to shell a couple grand to have beautiful custom wood ones, we set out on quite the little diy adventure. this project was tricky and time-consuming, but we are proud to have done it by ourselves and on the cheap.
first, I ordered pre-made cedar shutters. they were rough sawn and arrived all ready to stain. they are half the size of our windows EXCLUDING the casing...meaning, if mounted to the sides on the brick they won't actually cover our windows. we got over that fact because they're $40/shutter instead of hundreds, and let's face it, they are house jewelry. but we like the look of quality if not paying for quality, so there will be hinges.

design craft millworks shutters - www.homedepot.com

the stain was difficult to choose. i wanted to see the grain, and i wanted it to be relatively easy to refinish them over the years, so i opted for a translucent stain by sikkens. the color we chose is dark oak. staining was pretty simple even though this was my first time. the fact that it was new rough sawn cedar meant i only had to dust the shutters to prep them, and the stain soaked right in. got some good quality brushes and tried to paint it on as evenly as possible and moved methodically through all 8 in one go. took about 4 hours, but the results were stunning.

sikkens crd translucent dark oak

next: hardware. i decided on connecticut style strap hinges with lag pintels because they're easy to mount on brick. there was all this offset/throw info online that i tried to follow, but it was getting complex so i decided on flush-mounted hinges to bypass all that jazz. a lag pintel i can understand. :)
after ordering the hardware from hardwaresource.com, i realized i needed to find lag anchors, a hammer drill and the appropriate size bits for masonry. after a bunch more research i got us a $79 makita. since installation by a pro would likely cost over $300 in this area, i considered the drill a steal! and who knows what else i may need it for someday.

corded 5/8" makita hammer drill

so. installation day. this involved a lot of holding up the shutters one by one, marking where to drill into the mortar, inserting the anchors in, screwing in the pintels with a wrench, holding up the shutters, measuring where to screw the strap hinges into the wood, screwing them in, attaching the rattle hooks for the shutter dogs, measuring where to screw in the bolt that holds the dogs, etc etc.

anchor shield goes in the pre-drilled hole

pintel screwed into brick with shutter hinge resting on top

phil has a hammer drill and he knows how to use it.

georgie got about as sick of this as we did near the end

 and what was the result of all that work?

wood shutters diy

cedar shutters

what a huge difference hinges make!

now THIS is the cottage-y aesthetic we were going for!

other than cleaning the gutters and some minor caulking and mortar repair...i'm done with the front yard until spring.