House Exterior: Mini Makeover with Nu-Wood
Since moving to the lake, I have posted a few times about the exterior of my house. The front (street side) and back (lake side) look as if they are from two different homes.
The front of the house looks like a one-story contemporary home…
…especially with the design on the double front doors. Many that arrive via the front door think the house is a small ranch style house.
It is not until you go inside or see the house from the lake side that you see the house is a bigger two-story home that has a totally different rustic appeal.
I also have mentioned in a post or two that I was not sure I liked the color of the exterior. Since we have lived in the house for 2 years now. I have come to like the color after doing a lot of “exterior color scheme” research. I found that the exterior colors of my house are quite popular in mountain, ocean, and lake regions of the country.
Most of these homes have cedar or plank siding, where my house has beige brick with panel siding, but I understand now about the use of the dark teal/green color scheme on my house.
Even with my new found acceptance of the color, something still didn’t feel right. Something was missing…. interest, color balance?
Remember, I am not looking for big knock-down changes since we don’t have a budget for any major undertaking. We are content with making small changes.
It took two years, but I finally figured out what I could do on a budget to make this side of the house look more cohesive. See the second floor shed dormer?
It has always looked unfinished to my eye.
Recently when we were coming home on our boat via the lake, it came to me…
…an easy way to give the lake side of the house what it was missing.
What did we do?
We added board and batten shutters from Nu-Wood to the 3 sliding-glass doors along the second floor shed dormer.
If you haven’t heard of Nu-Wood shutters, they are one of the easy to install decorative millwork products for the inside and outside of homes.
The products made by Nu-Wood are not made of wood, but an advanced process of molding polyurethane that can be replicated to look and feel like wood while integrating the advantages of polyurethane products – namely they will never chip, peel or crack, nor will they be affected by the weather or insects. No maintenance needed. I like that!
The shutters were delivered right to our front door and were ready to install right out of the box. All the Nu-Wood millwork products come factory primed, and can be installed with no further painting, or you can have Nu-Wood custom paint your products using any one of the 1500 colors available through the Sherwin Williams outdoor line of paints.
I had the shutters made up by Nu-Wood in the Sherwin Williams color, Umber Rust to coordinate with the wood decking and railings.
All I needed to do to order them was measure how tall the sliding doors were and choose a Sherwin Williams paint color. They were delivered last Friday and Ed had them installed in an hour this past Saturday morning.
How to Install Nu-Wood Shutters
supplies needed:
- Nu-Wood Board and Batten Shutters customized to size and color
- Exterior screws – I used 10 x 2-1/2″ length
- Drill and drill bit the diameter of screws
- Exterior Spackle
- Spackle knife
- Damp rag
- Bubble level
- Sherwin Williams paint for touch-up over screw holes
- Small paint brush
- Pre-drill 12 counter-sunk holes in each shutter.
2. The drilled holes should be spaced evenly on the shutter, 4 row of 3 holes across as shown.
3. Place shutters where you want and check level.
4. Attach by counter-sinking exterior screws into the pre-drilled holes.
5. Fill holes with exterior Spackle or filler. Wipe excess Spackle around hole with a wet rag before it dries. Isn’t is amazing how the Nu-Wood shutters look like real wood? They feel like real wood, too.
5. Let Spackle in holes dry.
6. Once Spackle is dry, touch up using the same color Sherwin Williams paint the shutters were made in.
House BEFORE
No shutters.
House AFTER with Nu-Wood Shutters
With shutters.
A simple addition that adds overall color balance and makes the exterior look cohesive.
My favorite part is how the stained color on the stairs to the deck lead your eye up to the second floor now where the same color is on the shutters. :-)
Just the interest I was looking for.
Thanks to Nu-Wood for working with me on this update and my handy guy who helps in making sure that all my home improvement ideas come to fruition. :-)
You can find out more about Nu-Wood and the all the products they make over at the Nu-Wood website. There are many products ranging from shutters to small decorative millwork pieces to accent the exterior and interior of a home.
To order, email their sales department at sales@nu-wood.com and they will let you know where the closest location is to get Nu-Wood products. They sell only through distributors like 84 Lumber and other regional lumber yards across the U.S.
