THE CAVENDER DIARY

So I have been toying with the idea of shutters for the front of the house for a few months now. I knew they would be cedar, but I wasn’t sure of the style. Originally when we were house hunting, we looked at Arts & Crafts bungalows and Tudors from the 30’s. That is practically all you will find in our pre-war neighborhood. My personal style is more “Bungalow”.  I dreamed of mattress ticking wallpaper over beadboard wainscoting, stained glass windows above original glass-front bookcases on either side of the fireplace, and a cast-iron claw-foot bathtub and pedestal sink with little  black and white hexagon tiles. You get the idea? Vintage charm and character. …so how we ended up with a plain box 70’s ranch is beyond me. Wait a minute… Ohhh yeah…. Now I remember, it was the attached 2 car garage with alley entrance, 2 full bathrooms, ample closet space ( for a normal persons wardrobe anyway), the already open kitchen/living room, huge back yard…yadda, yadda, yadda. Very few of our neighbors have any of these things in their tiny 1930’s Tudors. 

Back to the shutters. A few years ago, while trick-or-treating with my nieces in my brothers mid-1960’s neighborhood, I took a picture of  these beauties…….

Star Shutters

Pretty Awesome, Right?  I absolutely love, love, love the star cut-outs. Very Austin Texas.  But they just don’t seem to fit “This” house. Perfect for my ideal 1930’s  craftsman bungalow. But our house needs to stay more true to its 70’s ranch roots……Everything we change/add has to” fit the style of the house”. That has been our mantra from the get-go, I’m even thinking of putting it on a t-shirt. So I looked to our new horizontal fence for inspiration, ……and also the pile of leftover cedar ceiling pieces in the garage.

All those little cut-off bits seemed to be just the right size. Add a few 1X2 trim pieces and a quick stapling together,………….(drumroll please)………. I ended up with a 6 of these…..

Perfect. They almost  look like they would have been on the house when she was built in 1972, and at the same time they are modern. The pale one is still the natural color of the cedar and the others I stained with our “Russet” stain diluted down with only 25%  of the colorant…..We like the diluted version  much better than the dark almost paint-like stain we put on the front of the fence. Eventually, all the cedar details outside will be stained this warm light brown.

Now, if I can just figure out how to attach them to the brick………..probably next weekend..I’ll keep you posted.