Dressing Up a Dormer Window with Shutters

Our home has beautiful dormer windows.

I love the little recessed ledges inside each dormer. But, the window in our hallway always looked so sad.

Then one day it hit me! This poor window has been neglected and has no character, jewelry or bling! For whatever reason (maybe because I was sleep deprived?) it took me a year to realize that the window itself had not been painted white like the other windows in our home.

The first thing I did was grab a paint brush and paint the muntin bars (or grille), the bars that separate and hold the panes of glass. Don't say I never taught you anything on this blog! Want to learn more about the anatomy of a window? Look on Pella's website.

It looked better, but there was too much white, so I painted the recessed area a sunny yellow.

Wow, that looks better! But, the window still looked a little stark. That lonely plant just wasn't pulling its own decorative weight.

So, I ran up to the attic where all the original shutters from our home are stored. I pulled two out of the attic and painted them with a pretty aqua blue oops paint.

Next, I took a sand paper and roughed up the edges and distressed them until you could see the dark green peeking through.

I bought four gate hinges at Lowe's and mounted them on the bottom and middle rails. I knew that there were studs on the edges of the window well, so I drove my screws into those corner studs.

The tops of the shutters protruded over the window well, so I couldn't use a gate hinge there. I painted a faux hinge on the shutters instead.

I also painted a little sign over the dormer to fill up the visual blank space between the tops of the shutters. The board was just piece of scrap cabinet toe kick. And, yes, those are simple upholstery tacks holding it to the wall.

To create this little sign, I found a font I liked, then typed out the phrase on the computer. I was able to tile two sheets together to span the width of the board. I rubbed pencil on the backside of my paper. Then traced the letters on the front of the paper. By pushing hard with the pencil, my type was transferred on the wood. This allowed me to paint over the pencil marked letters: "Here Comes the Sun..." one of my favorite Beatles songs.

 Sweet little birds waking up in their nest.

I dressed up the shutters by adding little keyhole drawer pulls.

I accessorized and put a little $5 Goodwill chair in the corner.

Around Christmas time I hung the star light for decoration, but it lets off the perfect amount of light for those darn night wakers. (Anyone else have those in your home?) So, it now hangs year round.

I think this window is very happy now!

What do you think? Does it need anything else? Maybe paint the chair or distress it? Or maybe that chair just needs a colorful cushion.

Want to see some other turquoise inspired projects? Check out theCSIProject.com's Turquoise challenge.