Shutters for the Kitchen Window

My kitchen window has looked like this for over a year now. I took the white blinds down to wash them and never put them back up again. I decided I liked the window bare and enjoyed it that way for a while. But having to squint inside the house got to me after a while. The window is West facing so it gets the hot afternoon sun, plus there is often a glare on the TV and we can’t have that now can we?

I started looking for treatment ideas (make my own cute cafe curtains with ribbon and buttons to hold it on the rod, use different types of material, like burlap, painters cloth, scarfs, tablecloth or decorative napkins, or just put the blinds back up). Then hubby bought this RV to work on. It took away the tiny bit of a view I had out that window and I knew it was time to get it covered.

I have to drive to Ogden for some medication once a month and I try to stop by a consignment shop while I’m up there. The minute I saw these shutters I knew they were exactly what I needed for the kitchen window. They were marked $18 each, but I was able to get them for $12 each. I didn’t think that was too bad.

I can open the bottom and let the sun come in.

Or open the top and close the bottom.

Or when it’s 5:00pm and the sun is blazing in the window, I can close both the top and bottom.

Here’s a close-up of the color and finish on the shutters. I love them just the way I bought them and won’t be doing anything to them yet.

Here they are at night. I like how they add height to the window making it seem taller than it is. I have 9′ ceiling and the cabinets are really tall. The window always seemed a little small to me.

Here’s the before again:

And the after. Isn’t that a huge difference? Please ignore the dinner dishes in the sink. I could either do the dishes or take pictures and I decided I’d rather take pictures.

Did you notice I raised the light and took the cover off? Yeah, I have another idea for that light above the sink now. I had to move all the bottles that were on the window sill too. That started me moving something else, then something else, then something else again. So, at this point pretty much the whole kitchen decor was moved around. Do you find yourself doing that too? When you add something to the mix does it start a decorating snowball that just gets bigger and bigger? I’ll show you the changes in a few days.