Three out of four stories of our brownstone had the original shutters on the windows. This was both a blessing and a curse. Obvious as to why it was a blessing, but have you ever stripped shutters? What a *%#{$# tedious job!

On the third floor, we found them painted and caulked into their housing. Again, a spectacular discovery until the actual rescue process.

Anyway, that’s mostly behind us now. The only shutters that need work are for our garden apartment. They’ve already been stripped, so the weekend project was just to paint them. Why are we choosing to paint instead of leaving the wood exposed? Well, first of all, they are not in good shape. After lots of glue and wood putty, the soft, water damaged pine didn’t look too great with stain. Secondly, I wanted to bounce the sunlight from the windows a bit with white paint. I think I actually tested this theory with a meter reading at the time, but I forgot the results.

As with all of our weekend projects, not a lot got done. Actually, there was no painting. It took close to 2 hours to take off all of the antique hardware, what with the stripped screws and all. Wiping all the shutters down, getting painting supplies, gossiping on the phone……too late to start painting!

Today is painting day. The quickest way to paint plantation shutters is to spray them. Although I do own a paint sprayer, it’s such a pain in the arse to set it up and break it down that I bought some Shur Line pad applicators to do the job. Haven’t decided which route I’ll take yet.

One tip I can give you is that you don’t use a brush. Well, it’s fine on the flat bits, but don’t even attempt to use it on the louvers. That’s where Shur Line is your friend. They make a small pad that fits between each slat and won’t get damaged as quickly as brushes or foam.

No matter what you use, it’s still a painful process.