DIY Shutters Made With Fence Pickets

Hey friends! I’m back today to share with you how we DIYed our new shutters for less than $50! Yep, that’s right, for all four of them! And, it was super easy!

If you remember from last week, I shared our new shutters.

Before these, we had the basic louvered shutters, and they were falling apart. They were wood, but time and weather had done their damage and they had to go.

I knew I didn’t want anything too fancy. Just a basic board and batten shutter. You’ve seen them everywhere right??

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I also knew that they couldn’t be that hard to make. I did a little bit of research and discovered I was right. Super easy, and oh so customizable. Perfect! So, we headed to Home Depot. We looked at several options for wood, and we settled on….fence pickets. Yep, standard 6 foot pine fence pickets. We got the cheapest option at $1.39 each. You could use the wider pickets if you want. I like that look as well, just wasn’t what I wanted for this house.

I measured the height of our windows – 59 inches. And, decided on four pickets wide. We purchased 5 pickets per shutter. We cut all the long pieces. We laid out four side by side. I used thin wood (about 1/4 inch thick) as spacers in between the pickets. You could use something thicker if you wanted more space in between – like maybe another picket. That’s just personal taste.

After deciding on the spacing I was able to determine the size of the cross boards that would hold everything together. In our case – 15 inches.

I used a framing square to make sure everything was straight and then attached a cross board to the top and the bottom. I just kind of eyeballed where I wanted them on the first one and then measured the rest from that. Again, personal taste. In our case – 7 inches from the top and bottom.

After the cross boards were attached, all the shutters got a coat of black exterior paint. And voila! I think these would also be really pretty stained – if on a white or other light colored exterior. But, with our brick, they would have just blended in so black was a better choice.

I will admit that some of the boards were a little loosey goosey when we were hanging them (like they were on hinges or something). Maybe adding a middle cross board would have helped with that. But, once they are screwed onto the house, they aren’t moving! (We used screws that are meant for brick and mortar to attach them to the house since that’s how the old ones were attached. I know some people don’t like to do that so there are other options. Just ask your handy hardware man :).)

I priced them out on Home Depot’s website and to get board and batten shutters pre-made at that size you are looking at paying anywhere from $80 a pair to $700+ a pair.  😯  I’d say $50 for two pair and a little bit of elbow grease sounds WAY better!! I love saving money don’t you?!?

Now, I’m back to working on the laundry room! So much to do and so little time! Gotta love the One Room Challenge!! HA! Be back Thursday for another update!!