Exterior Wood Shutters

Why Your House Deserves Real Exterior Wood Shutters

So you have decided that you want shutters installed in your home. You realize that if you purchase and install high quality exterior shutters, that it will benefit both your property values and curb appeal, but you are still undecided as to the full benefits of exterior wood shutters over vinyl shutters, PVC shutters, composite shutters or any other lower quality substitute product that is out there. Below you will find an explanation of the many advantages of real exterior wood shutters over other options.  It's what you really want anyway!

Real Wood Exterior Shutters Look the Best

Throughout the history of contemporary architecture, real wood exterior shutters have been the predominant solution for window coverings. Modern synthetic and prefabricated shutters attempt to emulate the aesthetic and energy conservation qualities of real exterior wood shutters to varying degrees. However, all attempts come up short in appearance, energy efficiency, and quality, and the discerning eye can immediately tell the difference.

Vinyls & Composites vs. Exterior Wood Shutters

Vinyl shutters are the least viable exterior shutter solution -- they are flat, mono-chromatic, and can detract from the appearance of your home or business. Due to limitations in the injection molding process, the overall visual quality of vinyl exterior shutters has to be compromised. Vinyl exterior shutters are also weak and flimsy, thin, easily deformed or damaged.  They are easily visible as inferior shutters from hundreds of feet away due to their flat, synthetic appearance. There are other composites that look more like real wood shutters, but these too are easily detectable as they do not have the subtle variations and imperfections that add so much to real exterior wood shutters. The best synthetics and composites actually cost more than real exterior wood shutters, and arrive unpainted! It is just not feasible to spend more to get an exterior shutter that looks worse than real wood shutters, has to be replaced sooner, arrives unpainted, and makes you feel as if you have cut corners or bought an inferior product?

Real Wood Shutters Match the Best

Most synthetic or prefabricated exterior shutters are available in only the most common window sizes, and increase in size every inch or two inches.  If your exterior shutters need to be 31 ½” high, you simply will not find shutters that fit your windows perfectly. You will have to take what you get, and it will be apparent. When you compare the look of a plastic injected faux wood shutter that isn’t even the right size to a solid whole cut wood piece of architectural millwork that is custom milled the precise size and style for your window, the choice will be obvious. Modular homes, such as those found in trailer parks, are notorious in their use of inferior quality imitation wood shutters of the incorrect size and style. If you have a distinctive, historic, or estate style home, do not detract from its beauty by installing inferior shutters. Buy solid exterior wood shutters customized for your style of home, custom fit for the size of your windows. Our exterior wood shutters can be easily customized to add additional details and accents that further match the shutter to the style of your home or business. Real solid wood exterior shutters can be custom painted to match or complement your home or office, with exact color matching, as opposed to a set of plastic injected shutters in 3 to 6 stock colors.

Real Wood Exterior Shutters Last Longer

As long as they are properly maintained, exterior wood shutters can last decades or even longer. We use premium materials such as whole cut, highest premium grade, FAS hard woods, premium joinery (joinery is the process and design that fasten the shutter components together), and premium finishes, stains, and paints. You may have to re-paint your exterior wood shutters occasionally, but isn't that still more appealing than owning unattractive, imitation wood shutters made from vinyl for five years, and then having to throw them out because they are dented, faded, and worn? PVC and Vinyl, depending upon exposure, begin to degrade both in color and structure as they are exposed to the elements. Furthermore, this type of exterior wood shutter cannot be repainted.

Well cared for exterior wood shutters can last for decades, generations, or even centuries. Monticello, Mount Vernon, Montpelier, and Ash-Lawn Highland are all estates that predate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and they all feature elegant real wood shutters. These shutters may have been replaced a few times over the span of 250 years, but certainly not once every five years. And our exterior wood shutters look great! In fact, Estate Millwork shutters are installed on the windows of Ash-Lawn Highland, President James Monroe's stately home.

Exterior Wood Shutters Are Traditional & Authentic

Home builders from the 18th to 20th century had to use real wood.  They had no other option. However, when home builders began to have more options, many builders began to use low quality lightweight materials that could keep their costs down. Most American homes predating the 1940's, and especially Edwardian, Victorian, Georgian, Tudor, and Colonial homes built in the 1920’s and before – those truly classic, elegant homes, have authentic exterior wood shutters, real wood trim, and real wood windows, - homeowners in that era refused to compromise quality -- why should you? Wood shutters are featured in the exteriors and interiors of the beautiful estates of England and Europe. For an authentic, energy efficient long lasting solution to your search for exterior shutters, our solid wood exterior shutters are second to none.