Easy DIY Wooden Shutters

   I was thinking about finding old wood and making shutters as decor for the linai at the back of our house for the longest time ever. To be honest, I tried to find old vintage wooden shutters around my area but had no luck. So after I mentioned that I wanted to host a bridal for my sister-in-law, I let my husband know that we need to start on making the shutters asap! And even though it wasn’t “asap”, we got them done in time for it to be the perfect backdrop for the bridal shower. And afterwards, the perfect decor for our linai. 

                       

• palette wood
• pneumatic nail punch for taking apart palettes (or hammer/pry bar)
• tape measure 
• 4 ft. level (only used because husband is crazy on having everything even)  
• nail gun
• miter saw 
• impact drill
• hammer drill for drilling in concrete 
• screws and nails that vary in size depending on size of wood being used
• tapcons for securing in concrete if needed depending where being hung

   I want to let you all know that there are always people and businesses that throw palettes out or sell them for cheap almost anywhere around you so I would definitely look into that! In fact, we got our palette wood from a business warehouse for free.

 

1. Draw Out Some Designs

• begin by drawing out or finding inspiration on what kind of design you want the shutters to have
• break apart the palette by taking out the nails one by one — we used a pneumatic nail punch for that but you may easily use a pry bar and hammer just as well in order to do take apart palette wood
  

2. Measure Before Making

• before you actually begin the building and cutting process, make sure you measure the area with a tape measure of where your shutters are going to go — that way, you don’t build a shutter that is too big or too small for that area
•  we hung ours on a wall that is 90 inches tall and 126 inches wide — so none of our shutters are taller than that and when we put them all together it left a few inches on each side of the wall

3. Making the Shutters

• when you have your designs figured out, put the pieces together to see how its going to look — the back palette pieces of the design will be secured together once the top design is nailed into the bottom pieces
  

•  flip the whole shutter upside down without forgetting how you want your design, and piece by piece you nail or screw the wood together that you should’ve measured and cut to size with a miter saw (see paragraph below)

• you want to nail from behind the shutter when you can so that you won’t see it from the front — we did that to all except for the white one since the pieces were a lot smaller

A good tip I want to give you all is to not use a screw longer than the thickness of the two layers of wood. 

   The pictures above show how we built some of the designs of the shutters. The last few pictures of the white shutter is actually part of some closet shelves that we didn’t need. Leo cut the sides off of those shelves and nailed each piece into an arrow like design onto a thin piece of wood board, shown above. If a piece of wood was too long, he drew a line with a pencil on it so that he knew where to cut it with the miter saw. As for the rest of the shutters, they were all made by palette wood. The other arrow like design was also placed on a wood board so that the actual design was nailed securely onto that wood board. The rest of the shutters did not need a wooden board underneath because the design above is actually holding together the palette wood underneath, as shown in the above pictures. To be honest, there is no incorrect way of building these. You can make whatever design your heart desires! You use the miter saw to cut down your wood if it is too long or too wide. Always measure how long you need your wood to be and draw out with a pencil where you need to cut it so that there aren’t any mistakes when you go to secure the palette wood together. 

4. Laying Out the Shutters like a Gallery Wall

•   once the shutters are done, lay down the design of how you want to hang them
• or if you’re building these for a window than skip this step and go straight to measuring the center of the window to the center of your shutter

5. Securing to the Wall

•   to secure it, measure out where you’re going to put the tapcon (if you’re drilling into concrete)/screw and use the hammer drill to make the hole BEFORE where your tapcon/screw is going to go

A tapcon is used only if you are screwing into a concrete wall, like we did. If you are hanging the shutters somewhere other than a concrete wall you can use a regular screw.

• I would suggest putting one tapcon/screw on top of the shutter and one on the bottom
• once you drill the holes, hang your shutter back up and use your impact drill to drill in your tapcon/screw
• do this to all your shutters and then you are done –unless you need everything dead even than grab that level and make sure that bubble is in the middle

This back linai (or florida room as some might say) is slowly getting a big makeover, little by little, as we rip out the old carpet, DIY our outdoor table, add a potting station, refresh the paint, and so much more! I mean, this linai is HUGE and very much outdated (see before picture below) so it needs lots of love! Subscribe below to stay tuned with the makeover and follow along on Insta for some behind the scenes action!