Shutter Installation

PREP & INSTALLATION OF WOOD SHUTTERS

These antique wooden shutters with working louvers from Brooklyn Restoration will go on 6 1/2 windows. Scraping, cleaning, cutting to size, priming painting, mounting was a 3-day project, 30 hrs total of work.

Day 1 - Saturday: Scrape, cutting, & wash
I scraped the shutters where I bought them, but they needed more scraping at home with variously-angled blades to reach between the myriad of louvers.

Cutting a double-length shutter using table saw. Rudy only had one shutter of proper length for the garage-window, but he had a long shutter that I could cut to a proper length.


Louver swivel-slots, after scraping




After scraping, a good scrubbing.


Scraping produced a big pile of paint chips. They might contain lead because paint before the 1970s had lead, before it was banned. Throw it away properly! It shouldn't just be dumped in the yard.



After scrubbing



Day 2 - Sunday: priming & painting

Painting shutters Midnight Black (flat). The following shutters needed priming: Shutters with bare exposed wood, and shutters with gloss paint. I primed the bare wood for protection from weathering. I primed the gloss paint because the new paint didn't bind well to the gloss.

Day 3 - Wednesday: Mounting

A good shutter mounting will leave a gap between the shutter & the shingles. If the shutter is too snug, moisture may not be able to escape fast enough, and cause mildew or other moisture damage.

Tools for mounting shutters:

I used 3-inch galvanized Corner Braces to support the shutter bottoms. The braces were screwed in to the outside wall. I screwed the top ends directly to the outside wall. In photo below, I am bending the braces to wrap around front of top shutter. This idea was abandoned because the bend blocked drill access to the opposite mounting hole.

To keep the shutter from direct contact with outside wall shingles: I made spacer disks from a washing-machine discharge hose. An exhaustive search of the Internet & Home Depot yielded no product for this purpose: Shutter-mounting products I found did not apply to mounting fixed wood shutters: hardware is more readily available either for lightweight plastic shutter installation, or for the real-deal actual working hinged shutters. So I had to improvise. I came up with the hose idea after walking many aisles of home depot.

Living room shutters installed. I now want to paint the trim mustard or antique-white, to complement the red & black. Oh dear, the electric meter is blocking where I need to put a shutter. That window will have to wait!!

Everbilt galvanized Corner Braces to support shutter bottoms.

Close-up of spacers.

Mission accomplished! You can see one window that still needs a shutter....I ran out of shutters. Well now I have an excuse to again check out Brooklyn Restoration.

After painting those angle braces red....

Even nicer after cutting the grass

Meanwhile back on the farm

This vine is mimicking the curlicues on the iron hanger. would that be Morning Glory? And the orange/yellow flowers have been in bloom all week...thanks to anyone who can tell me what they are.....

Zucchini starts as yellow blossoms

Sunflowers in foreground & background. Tomatos are along the bamboo fence. Zucchini at bottom right.

After 9 weeks, sunflowers are as tall as me. They looked to be growing 6 inches a day lately...up to my belly one day, then my sternum, then up to my acromioclavicular ligament the next!!

Check out this bird was strutting around my yard last week......gorgeous coat of light-brown, with red face....thanks to anyone who can tell me what kind of bird or fowl this is....