DIY Board and Batten Shutters

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As far as front doors go, ours is a wimp.

As in the last picked for the dodgeball team,  knocked out in under 5 seconds kind of wimp. It does its job and well…that’s about all it has going for it in my book. Bless it.

Like everything else was in our house at square one, it lacks personality.

But what’s trickier than all of the bajillion other things we’ve DIYed to solve the personality problem, we’re not allowed to change anything on the exterior of our house. HOA is strict in our subdivision.

So when it came time to decorate our porch for fall, I thought I’d cheat the system. I’ve always wanted sidelights to frame out our door and make it feel a little bigger, and I wanted a way to bring in the cozy rustic feel I always love.

The answer: DIY board and batten shutters!

Supplies Used:  (Affiliate links are provided below. For more information, see my full disclosure.)

• 4 1x6x6 pine boards
• 1 1x4x6 pine board
• Tape measure and pencil
• Drill
• Circular saw
• About 30 1.5 inch wood screws
• DIY wood stain or stain of your choice (The link will take you to my DIY stain recipe.)
• Marine grade polyurethane

The Steps:

We decided on a whim to try out this project, so my pictures are anything but fancy here. But they do the job.

I was so excited that we only had to make four cuts with our saw for this one! (It’s the little things in life, right? Too much DIY starts to make you crazy sometimes.)

We paired both sets of 1×6 boards first to line them up how we wanted. (I’d thought about getting 8 foot long boards to cut to the size we needed so they were the same height as our door, but our porch light was in the way.)

Using our tape measure, we marked where we wanted to place our horizontal board to connect the two 1x6s.

Then, we placed our 1×4 board on top of the paired 1x6s and marked the length we needed.

We gave the 1×4 a quick cut with the circular saw.

And we placed the horizontal 1×4 piece underneath the paired 1×6 boards. We made sure to line it up well. Using the drill, we drove our wood screws through the back of the 1×6 boards to connect the 1×4 piece.

Then, repeated on the other end. Ta da! We had a shutter. We did the same for the other shutter too. (Captain Obvious over here.)

I keep a plastic coffee can always full in our garage with my pre-mixed DIY wood stain. I’m seriously hooked on this stuff. Mainly because it’s dirt cheap, easy to make using a few ingredients from our kitchen, and clean up is really easy.

The smell isn’t exactly a bouquet of roses, but it goes away quickly. And it’s not really any worse than chemical stain fumes.

I’ve used this stain on our bathroom plank wall, DIY wood beam doorway, mail organizer, jewelry organizer, foyer table, and lots of other stuff. It’s handy dandy. Told ya! Hooked.

Since these shutters will most likely get some rain on them every now and then, I made sure to give them a couple of coats of marine grade polyurethane. It’s used on boat decking, so it can handle the job.

So we may not get our beefy fabulous charming wood door that we pine over. (See what I did there? Har. Har.)  But at least we get a little interest and wood grain action going on.

I’ll take whatever I can get. To keep them in place and from falling over, we’ll put a strip of heavy duty Scotch mounting tape on the siding behind the shutters until we’re ready to take them down again.

I wish I’d taken a before shot without the shutters just to prove how much of a difference they make.

I can think of lots of other places where these could be used for some wall decor inside too.

What do you think? I mean…the door’s still wimpy but at least we put a macho biker jacket on it to fool some of the other cooler doors out there.

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