Exterior window shutters add immediate
visual appeal to a house's exterior.
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Adding shutters to your
house can work miracles
Exterior Window Shutters
Does the exterior of your home seem drab? Take the first step to improving your home's outside curb appeal by adding exterior house shutters for an attractive spark.
Adding shutters to your house's exterior makes a dramatic improvement in the house's appearance. Exterior shutters can greatly improve the curb appeal of almost any home. They are one of the few improvements that return their full value when it’s time to sell, not to mention the enjoyment you will feel every time you pull into your driveway.
Today most shutters are purely decorative, but they invoke a time when they were completely functional and provided a way of providing security for the home owners. Originally they were on the inside. This was of course, before people had glass windows.
As glass windows became more popular, the wood shutters were placed on the outside to provide protection from the weather and to keep critters from gaining entrance into the house (this was before screens).
Plantation shutters were introduced by the Spanish into the southeast. Plantation shutters were made made with wider louvers and were typically painted white.
Today, most shutters are purely decorative, although some historic homes still use operative shutters (that is, they can be closed to protect the window).
Shutters can be louvered style, raised panel, and board and batten or combinations. The particular style of shutter is associated with particular architectural styles.
Most functioning shutters are hinged on the sides. However, in the extreme warmer climates, Bahaman shutters are hinged at the top and are opened by placing a support on the bottom. This protects the interior from the sun and rain, but still allows for ventilation.
They can be made from vinyl, wood, aluminum, composite materials and fiberglass with varying degrees of cost.
Exterior shutters
For louvered shutters the correct orientation is to have the slats facing so that rain is directed away from the window when closed.
Raised panels were typical shutters used in hurricane prone areas as they provided more protection for the window when closed.
Shutters can be purchased in either vinyl (lease expensive), composite (mid priced), fiberglass (most expensive), and wood (reasonably priced initially, but must be maintained properly--will require painting approximately every 2 years).
Painting faded vinyl shutters
While vinyl shutters are the same color all the way through, they do tend to fade after about 5 years. When prepping your house for sale, you may want to re-paint these shutters to regain their original appearance and charm.
First, it is better to remove the shutters for the entire painting and cleaning process. If this isn't possible, you'll have to take extreme care in the cleaning and painting process to avoid ruining your existing house paint or siding. The cleaning process can leave streaks on the siding from the cleaning product runoff.
Wash the vinyl shutters thoroughly with a detergent that contains a bleach or acid-based mildew killer to remove all traces of both dirt and mildew. There are various premixed products available at your local hardware store that will do the job, or you can use TSP and add bleach to it.
Allow the shutters to dry and then lightly sand them with a 120 grit sandpaper to slightly rough up the surface for better paint adhesion.
An exterior latex paint is the only choice for your finish coat. Latex expands and contracts quite a bit, so the paint must be flexible enough to stretch, too.
Applying a latex primer is not absolutely necessary but it is a nice security blanket and will undoubtedly help the finish paint to stick even better. Generally, primers are used to even up the absorption of the finish coat by sealing the surface. Since vinyl is not porous the prime function of the primer is not needed. However, it should be noted that primers cling more tenaciously to surfaces than finish paints. So if you don't mind the extra work, priming first is not a bad idea.