Why have fake shutters become ubiquitous on American homes?
I have a problem with fake shutters.If you follow my page, you will see a lot of shutter fails.They give me a little bit of rage that no other architectural element does.Though it will be therapeutic for me, the purpose of this post is not just to vent.To explain why a fake shutter flies in the face of almost every rule of design.
My hope is that more people will see the mistake that fake shutters are and that will prevent one more house from giving its windows a black eye and making me crazy.If you read this post, you will be cursed like me in seeing the world of fake shutters.It will be like when the lights come on at the bar at closing time and you realize what the person you have been dancing with looks like.Be afraid!
Why do they exist?A lot of other people wanted to jump on the shutter band wagon but couldn't afford real shutters.You will not realize how bad your shutters are if they don't work.
You see, real shutters.It is that simple.The shutters are fake if they don't shut.There are a lot of reasons why shutters are designed to cover your window.They protect against storms.Relief is provided from the hot summer sun and cold winter winds.They keep rain, hail, sleet and snow off your windows.They can help illuminate a room for sleep.Shutters are useful and practical.
When you take a randomly sized piece of plastic and screw it to the siding next to your window and call it a shutter, you are fooling yourself and a few others, but no one who reads this blog anymore.I promised you the reasons why they get my goad, so I might as well dig into the details.
It's easy to spot this for just about everyone.Who are you fooling if your window is 6 feet wide and your shutter is only a foot wide?You don't think it's a big deal, but proportions matter.It's like driving a big rig with 18 donut spare tires if you put undersized fake shutters on your house.It is awkward and ineffective.
When you close both sides of the window, real shutters will cover it precisely.They won't close the window because it's too small.Make it hard for my kindergartener to tell fake shutters from real ones.
It is clear when walking the neighborhood that this one is harder to see when flying by in the car.The shutters are designed to shed water when they are closed.When they are open, the louvres would be aligned so that the water would come back onto the siding instead of going down and away from the building.
I think the genius designers of fake shutters did this because they only have one position they can be in and that is open.It was too much to ask them to look at how real shutters were before designing their fake shutter.
Some house styles have shutter designs that are different to the others.The pictures were cut into the top panel of the shutters.Plantation shutters fit well on Mission and Spanish style homes.shutter roulette is when you put a random shutter design on a house.
Adults need a similar system for shutters on their houses as kids do.If you don't know what style your house should be asking someone who does like it.
Not every window has been designed to accommodate a shutter.It doesn't mean you should have a shutter on that window.Not every window has a shutter.I should make a shirt out of that.
Start looking around your neighborhood.Is they too small?Too big?Are they fixed to the building or a part of it?Are they upside down, the wrong size or style?It is like a shutter-pocaplypse outside, with so many questions and fake shutters.
You can appreciate a beautiful pair of historic shutters if you are aware of them.The right window has a pair of real shutters added to it.The fakers tried to duplicate that beauty.You already know that nothing compares to the real deal.
I made you guys a fun video.For some great advice about vinyl shutters, check it out below.
I like working with my hands and teaching others how to do it themselves.Everything can be taught if you only give it a chance.
I don't know.My parents own a Spanish revival house with fake shutters.They have always been there based on old photos.This is interior California, and I don't think anyone installed functional shutters during this era.Most of the houses in this neighborhood have fake shutters, but there are a few Monterey style houses that have functional shutters over doors.They are exactly the size of the windows, are on the top windows only, and are board and batten.Every house here has fake shutters that fit the aesthetic of the house.
We have a window that doesn't have wood trim and we have fake shutters on it.The shutters make up for the lack of trim by framing the window in the same color as the other windows.What do you think should be done?
I don't like the fake black shutters that are screwed in next to the windows on the siding.We can see the ghost marks of the shutters that used to be on the house.I want to mount the historic look back to the house with the right hardware.Since we are getting new windows that do not need them closed, they don't need to be operational.Is there a video on how to install shutters?We are building our own boards.
The house we bought last fall has fake shutters.I went inside to see what I could find, and found your post.The mine are coming off.That's right.
Yes, ha!If you want to see some of the bad stuff, follow me on social media.I do fail on Shudder Sunday every week.