Exterior Window Shutters

Homes where the windows look too small or too sparse for the wall, and traditional styles where shutters are part of the look. Shutters are one of the quickest ways to change how the front of a house reads from the street.

Shutters are purely a decision about how the outside of your home looks, with one rule that gets broken constantly: a pair of shutters should look as though it could close over the window. Shutters that are too narrow are the fastest way to make a good-looking house look cheap.

Decorative panels are the most common. Working shutters still exist, still close, and on a historic home they may be required.

Exterior shutters in this climate are either looked after, or they become the thing that holds water against your siding. Mounted flat with no drainage gap, they trap moisture behind the panel, and on a wood or fiber cement wall that is where rot starts.

Decorative or working, the mounting matters more than the panel itself: standoffs, which are small spacers that hold the panel off the wall, a clear drainage gap, and fasteners that will not stain the siding as they age.

Each shutter in a pair should be about half the width of the window, so together they would cover it if closed. They should also run the full height of the window, from the top trim to the sill.

Louvered shutters, with angled slats, suit most traditional homes. Raised or flat panel shutters give a heavier, more formal look, and board-and-batten styles suit farmhouse and craftsman homes.

It is worth checking the siding behind any old flat-mounted shutter, because hidden damage often starts there. These are the signs that it is time.

• Cracked, warped or badly faded panels.
• Shutters screwed flat to the wall with no gap behind them.
• Rust streaks or stains running down the siding from the fasteners.
• Soft or discolored siding behind or under a shutter.
• Panels clearly narrower than half the window.