8 ms·

These "fake shutters" are just window trim, and there's nothing wrong with that. This type of misguided plea for authenticity would be valid if somebody put mis

These "fake shutters" are just window trim, and there's nothing wrong with that. This type of misguided plea for authenticity would be valid if somebody put mis-sized or fake shutters on an actual period house, but most of these houses are modern. They weren't designed to have real shutters, they don't need real shutters to thermally perform, and the material and type of real shutters that you put on houses that actually need hurricane protection now is not always the same as it was 100 years ago. This is like complaining about "fake columns" on a neoclassical facade. Or the non-structural "fake brick" on any modern building.

lttlrck 5y ago
My house has the "Are You Kidding Me" 11ft wide windows with 1ft wide shutters variety. It's stupid practically speaking, but they've been there for decades and they look nice. Rather than ranting about how terrible they are, it would be be helpful to offer some alternative dressing - I have 3 more huge windows without fake shutters that look quite plain...
- fortyseven 5y ago
  > they look nice That's the key to this entire thing -- I'm having trouble believing people don't understand that this: discussion on the functionality is fine, but at the end of the day the "fake shutters" are decoration.
  - tene 5y ago
    I'm having trouble believing that people don't understand this: the criticism isn't that someone is decorating, but that this specific choice of decoration feels self-contradictory and stands out as unusual to many people. If you want decorative rectangles to the sides of your windows, great, go for it! What's the specific value add of designing those decorative rectangles to look like spectacularly useless shutters, instead of any other decorative design that's not trying to look like something functional in a way that contradicts that suggested functionality? Alternatively, if you want your decorations to look like shutters because you like the aesthetic of shutters, why would you choose for them to look like useless nonfunctional shutters instead of designing them to actually look like a usable shutter? What's the reasoning behind someone who sits down to design a house and concludes "I want this to look like shutters, but I really want it to look like bad, useless shutters that could never work."? Either make it look like a shutter, or don't, but it's baffling to me that so many people decide to hang out in the uncanny valley between those two options.
- joshspankit 5y ago
  “it would be be helpful to offer some alternative dressing” Honestly, this is probably the part that irks me the most about fake shutters (and that says a lot). If you’re not going to make the illusion convincing, then why not make something genuinely aesthetically pleasing that’s not shutters at all? Something based on picture frames, or some type of CNC-cut pattern, or even just wider vertical sections painted the same colour as the rest of the trim. We’ve been making interesting accents around rectangles for hundreds of years. The well is deep and full of beauty!
kstrauser 5y ago
I agree. Know what I hate way more than fake shutters? Giant flat exterior walls, usually on the site of the house, with a couple of small, undecorated windows. To me, they look like a kid drew a house and then remembered to draw a couple of holes on it.
- linksnapzz 5y ago
  House-shaped box. Windows are expensive, see. It's especially annoying when the home is in a northerly latitude, and the S/SE facing side has no windows.
- mc32 5y ago
  One of the worst offenders are the low-rise apartment buildings painted in beige or other “semi-arid” palette that are built with a street level soft storey and have square holes in the walls for windows but are otherwise unadorned. The kinds that northridge often toppled. They suck.
  - kstrauser 5y ago
    Oh, those are horrid. Not that shutters would suddenly make them attractive, but they could use something to give them visual interest.
- silisili 5y ago
  Yes! I had a guy painting my old house, and when he was done I was staring at it and it looked...ugly. Not the paint, something was off about it. He forgot to put the cheap plastic fake shutters on. Much better.
peanut_worm 5y ago
> This is like complaining about "fake columns" on a neoclassical facade. Or the non-structural "fake brick" on any modern building. Those seem like valid things to complain about.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Brick needs no painting. If you’re choosing a brick finish to save on exterior maintenance, then the brick is functional, even if not structural.
function_seven 5y ago
I have no problem with non-functional facsimiles of things. Like, I'd rather have a stick-framed house with brick veneer than an actual brick house. (Easier to modify, better seismic, better insulation, etc.) Brick looks nice, and that's all I'm wanting out of it. Same with my old patio. Instead of paying lots of money for large-format tiles, I had someone skim coat some colored concrete on top, using pin-striping tape to give the illusion of grout lines. (Tape is pulled up after concrete cures a bit, so there's actual grooves) Came out looking fantastic, and was much cheaper. But the guy who did it still had to pay attention to the details, like not having patterns magically cross the grout lines. Real tile would never do that, so my fake tile better not, either. My issue with these shutters isn't that they're not "real", but that their attempt to mimic fails and basically sticks out as shoddy work. Go ahead and fake it, but please put some effort into the illusion. Otherwise why bother with louvers that slant wrong, and shutters that have no hope of matching the adjacent window's proportion?
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > I have no problem with non-functional facsimiles of things. I needed a damaged tile floor repaired once. But the tile was not available. A local artist said "no problem" and with mortar and paint was able to very convincingly fake it. Faux finishes and Trompe-l'œil are really incredible art in and of themselves, and are a lot of fun, too. I have a Trompe-l'œil mouse running along the baseboard in my house :-)
  - function_seven 5y ago
    > I have a Trompe-l'œil mouse running along the baseboard in my house :-) That's awesome. I had to look up "Trompe-l'œil" to see what you meant. That image search is neat. And this mouse[0] would work perfectly in my hallway. There's already some cracking plaster in there. Might as well lean into it. [0] https://i.imgur.com/4U6G8sH.jpg https://i.imgur.com/4U6G8sH.jpg
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Love it!
NikolaNovak 5y ago
I appreciate your point of view, and I find it somewhat persuasive. But my personal aesthetic compass swings back and still chafes at the "non-functional" functional part. More than any other analogy, it reminds me of fake scoops or vents on some sport cars or sport image cars, which are actually completely non-permeable and definitely don't lead anywhere or do anything. They're aesthetic trim yes, but they're also a... Dunno, pretense? It reveals a slightly "wannabe" attitude. Though it's possible I'm reading too much into the whole thing - non functional spoilers / wings don't bother me nearly as much on cars. Maybe fake shutters just look cheesier? So I guess that fake brick feels like non functional spoilers. Fake shutters feel like non functional scoops.
- bombcar 5y ago
  If you dress up for the opera, take a look at your clothes - almost every aspect will be some “fake aesthetic” that has become standard. I was hoping for more detailed reasoning beyond “it’s fake and not a great imitation” - but so are many other vestigial fashion items. Ties don’t work well as bibs anymore, after all.
  - harg 5y ago
    Except that even smart clothes have a functional use: as clothes. Fake shutters have no utility value. A closer analogy to dressing up for the opera would be artisanal hand-carved decorative (but functional) shutters basic plain shutters. They both have the same utility but one has nicer aesthetic.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    given the argument that good design is functional design fake anything that serves no functional purpose would, if that argument holds sway, be bad.
  - wolrah 5y ago
    > If you dress up for the opera, take a look at your clothes - almost every aspect will be some “fake aesthetic” that has become standard. I agree wholeheartedly and find the idea of dressing up a specific way for anything but practical/safety reasons or costume parties to be silly. Most non-safety dress codes only exist to artificially segment the population.
philwelch 5y ago
The difference is that fake brick and fake columns can form visually convincing illusions. Fake shutters aren't a convincing illusion of real shutters, but they look enough like shutters that they aren't convincing as non-functional decoration, either. If you had fake shutters that were wide enough that I could imagine them being able to cover the window if they were able to close, I personally wouldn't be bothered by them.
- bombcar 5y ago
  What about real but collapsible shutters? They often come from above but they scrunch down to a smaller space than actual shutters would.
  - philwelch 5y ago
    I don't have a problem with folding shutters, though I don't see them around much.
  - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
    I've seen them up north and I think they're a good fit there. I suspect (not sure) that they aren't as strong as single piece shutters and here on the Gulf coast it might make a difference. Noting here that I prefer typical shutters over rolldown protection. Hinged shutters are great to reduce light and the winds that rolldown are good for can lift off (gable strapped) roofs.
chana_masala 5y ago
There's nothing wrong with your view or the author's, however it seems like you're talking past each other because neither of you are each other's target demographic. This is like complaining about how bad JavaScript is as a language on a thread about React, or something. It's nearly irrelevant
- joshspankit 5y ago
  I challenge you: Which demographic wants fake shutters that are visibly useless?
JohnFen 5y ago
> This is like complaining about "fake columns" on a neoclassical facade. Or the non-structural "fake brick" on any modern building. It is. But I'm more on the author's side than not on this. I mean, fake shutters don't make me angry -- but I do notice them because they look so stupid. I feel similarly about most fake columns. Not so much about fake brick. I think I react that way because they're so obviously fake -- that's what makes them stupid. If they were decorative but plausible, I'd react differently. I suspect that's why I don't mind the fake brick -- most fake brick looks realistic.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  Fake brick may be fine; I haven't done an extensive survey. The fake rock sold for use on exteriors, however, is awful. If you're closer than twenty feet, the wood glue they use to paste it to the paneling is the most visible feature. Nothing that looks like mortar is used. Closer up, the "rocks" themselves start to look like those sold for aquariums. I suspect that the architects who spec these never visit their mistakes.
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
Sometimes they can't even get them right as decoration: https://goo.gl/maps/j2P3kogSxbq1X3th7 https://goo.gl/maps/j2P3kogSxbq1X3th7
- kstrauser 5y ago
  How do I delete this?
WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
Shutters that close are terrifically useful for reducing light & noise and for storm protection (I'm in FL). What fake shutters do is endlessly remind me how marvelously stupid it is that that I don't have actual shutters.
galago 5y ago
People started to have short-grass lawns because they were pretending they were an estate house with livestock. That's a much worse waste of resources in my opinion, because most Americans have forgotten why they were doing it. It a zombie affectation.
- katzgrau 5y ago
  I get a certain (artistic?) satisfaction in bringing order out of natural disorder. Trimmed bushes, groomed/edged lawn, mulched beds - can't all be a throwback to a bygone era, can it?
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    Keeping short grass helps keep vermin away from the house. It is pleasing to walk on, shoes or barefoot. It has an orderly aesthetic. HOAs and city ordinances that measure the height of your grass to within a quarter of an inch are absurd, but letting your entire yard go wild isn't great either. My house is surrounded by forest and wild grassy areas, but we still keep a buffer of short grass at least 25' on all sides (with some ornamental bushes and a few select trees) and I wouldn't give it up for anything.
- snth 5y ago
  I don't believe this one. I guess it's possible it was originally true, but I don't think it's relevant now. I've lived in a house where we let the lawn go. It got very brushy and wasn't usable by us anymore. It was difficult to even walk though. AND, by that point it was too high to cut back into shape with a regular lawnmower. So I keep my lawn trimmed for the practical reason of wanting to use it.
  - gbrown 5y ago
    Well, sure, if you have a lawn and stop maintaining it, the result will suck. That’s not the alternative though, which is environment appropriate landscaping. Out west that’s often succulents and hardscape. Where I live in the Midwest, that’s perennial flowers and prairie.
Brian_K_White 5y ago
"just window trim, and there's nothing wrong with that" I agree! And so do my inflatable biceps!
brailsafe 5y ago
Speed holes on various upsettingly ugly vehicles would agree with you I suppose. I personally don't care about the function or lack-there-of, but many of your examples seem to embody the desolate nature of suburbia in the same way as awful cul-de-sacs, lawns, or Applebees; they're a bad compromise. If you don't need pillars, make something good using the framework you're operating in and add other decorations that aren't trying to be something they're not. Fuck fake pillars. They're as gross as the stupid greyish peach tan colour the house is painted.
aaron695 5y ago
> These "fake shutters" are just window trim Window trim serves a purpose. These do not serve the purpose of window trim I wouldn't think. They would have to have window trim underneath them. Window trim is purposeful and it needs to look ok or beautiful like any normal part of the house, like a roof or door. I think most people complain about fake brick or fake columns. Something like fake plastic wood flooring, again serves a purpose.
throw0101a 5y ago
> These "fake shutters" are just window trim, and there's nothing wrong with that. His problem is not that they're window trim, it is that they don't seem to even be trying to make them aesthetically accurate to the real ones. > Reason #1 They Don’t Fit […] If your window is 6 feet wide and your shutter is only a foot wide, who do you think you are fooling? You may not think it’s a big deal, but proportions matter. Putting undersized fake shutters on your house is like driving a big rig with 18 donut spare tires. Would it be that hard to have the shutters be the same area as the window for good proportionality? It's like having (fake) columns and not making the effort to making sure the measurements are right: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_order https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_order He wants people to make an effort to do things properly instead of in a slap-dash fashion. If someone wants a certain aesthetic look or feature, then actually try to re-create it. Otherwise why bother wasting people's time and money?
- joshspankit 5y ago
  “Would it be that hard to have the shutters be the same area as the window for good proportionality?” Considering one of the pics showed a window taking up 70% of the available space, I’d say the designer would tell you that having shutters with the same area as the window would be an impossibility.
oliwarner 5y ago
Non-structural brick and columns aren't the same thing at all. They look like they could be the real thing doing the real job. These shutters are visibly non-functional.
alkonaut 5y ago
Having fake brick anywhere or a column that doesn’t actually support anything is also terrible. If something looks like a stone or brick it better not be a thin fake thing on a piece of exterior sheeting. But I agree on the principle because the most common window trim today: muntins (Glazing bars) is almost invariably “fake” today, in that it doesn’t have the original function of breaking up the glass in smaller and cheaper pieces. Today it’s purely a trim. Seen that way, I guess there is nothing wrong with having shutters for the same reason. I do agree with the author on one thing though: if one does put fixed shutters on a house then at least make them plausible. Just get shutters that are half the window size. Choosing shutters 1/3 the window width makes little sense.

lttlrck 5y ago

My house has the "Are You Kidding Me" 11ft wide windows with 1ft wide shutters variety. It's stupid practically speaking, but they've been there for decades and they look nice. Rather than ranting about how terrible they are, it would be be helpful to offer some alternative dressing - I have 3 more huge windows without fake shutters that look quite plain...

fortyseven 5y ago
> they look nice That's the key to this entire thing -- I'm having trouble believing people don't understand that this: discussion on the functionality is fine, but at the end of the day the "fake shutters" are decoration.
- tene 5y ago
  I'm having trouble believing that people don't understand this: the criticism isn't that someone is decorating, but that this specific choice of decoration feels self-contradictory and stands out as unusual to many people. If you want decorative rectangles to the sides of your windows, great, go for it! What's the specific value add of designing those decorative rectangles to look like spectacularly useless shutters, instead of any other decorative design that's not trying to look like something functional in a way that contradicts that suggested functionality? Alternatively, if you want your decorations to look like shutters because you like the aesthetic of shutters, why would you choose for them to look like useless nonfunctional shutters instead of designing them to actually look like a usable shutter? What's the reasoning behind someone who sits down to design a house and concludes "I want this to look like shutters, but I really want it to look like bad, useless shutters that could never work."? Either make it look like a shutter, or don't, but it's baffling to me that so many people decide to hang out in the uncanny valley between those two options.
joshspankit 5y ago
“it would be be helpful to offer some alternative dressing” Honestly, this is probably the part that irks me the most about fake shutters (and that says a lot). If you’re not going to make the illusion convincing, then why not make something genuinely aesthetically pleasing that’s not shutters at all? Something based on picture frames, or some type of CNC-cut pattern, or even just wider vertical sections painted the same colour as the rest of the trim. We’ve been making interesting accents around rectangles for hundreds of years. The well is deep and full of beauty!

kstrauser 5y ago

I agree. Know what I hate way more than fake shutters? Giant flat exterior walls, usually on the site of the house, with a couple of small, undecorated windows. To me, they look like a kid drew a house and then remembered to draw a couple of holes on it.

linksnapzz 5y ago
House-shaped box. Windows are expensive, see. It's especially annoying when the home is in a northerly latitude, and the S/SE facing side has no windows.
mc32 5y ago
One of the worst offenders are the low-rise apartment buildings painted in beige or other “semi-arid” palette that are built with a street level soft storey and have square holes in the walls for windows but are otherwise unadorned. The kinds that northridge often toppled. They suck.
- kstrauser 5y ago
  Oh, those are horrid. Not that shutters would suddenly make them attractive, but they could use something to give them visual interest.
silisili 5y ago
Yes! I had a guy painting my old house, and when he was done I was staring at it and it looked...ugly. Not the paint, something was off about it. He forgot to put the cheap plastic fake shutters on. Much better.

peanut_worm 5y ago

> This is like complaining about "fake columns" on a neoclassical facade. Or the non-structural "fake brick" on any modern building. Those seem like valid things to complain about.

sokoloff 5y ago
Brick needs no painting. If you’re choosing a brick finish to save on exterior maintenance, then the brick is functional, even if not structural.

function_seven 5y ago

I have no problem with non-functional facsimiles of things. Like, I'd rather have a stick-framed house with brick veneer than an actual brick house. (Easier to modify, better seismic, better insulation, etc.) Brick looks nice, and that's all I'm wanting out of it. Same with my old patio. Instead of paying lots of money for large-format tiles, I had someone skim coat some colored concrete on top, using pin-striping tape to give the illusion of grout lines. (Tape is pulled up after concrete cures a bit, so there's actual grooves) Came out looking fantastic, and was much cheaper. But the guy who did it still had to pay attention to the details, like not having patterns magically cross the grout lines. Real tile would never do that, so my fake tile better not, either. My issue with these shutters isn't that they're not "real", but that their attempt to mimic fails and basically sticks out as shoddy work. Go ahead and fake it, but please put some effort into the illusion. Otherwise why bother with louvers that slant wrong, and shutters that have no hope of matching the adjacent window's proportion?

WalterBright 5y ago
> I have no problem with non-functional facsimiles of things. I needed a damaged tile floor repaired once. But the tile was not available. A local artist said "no problem" and with mortar and paint was able to very convincingly fake it. Faux finishes and Trompe-l'œil are really incredible art in and of themselves, and are a lot of fun, too. I have a Trompe-l'œil mouse running along the baseboard in my house :-)
- function_seven 5y ago
  > I have a Trompe-l'œil mouse running along the baseboard in my house :-) That's awesome. I had to look up "Trompe-l'œil" to see what you meant. That image search is neat. And this mouse[0] would work perfectly in my hallway. There's already some cracking plaster in there. Might as well lean into it. [0] https://i.imgur.com/4U6G8sH.jpg https://i.imgur.com/4U6G8sH.jpg
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Love it!

NikolaNovak 5y ago

I appreciate your point of view, and I find it somewhat persuasive. But my personal aesthetic compass swings back and still chafes at the "non-functional" functional part. More than any other analogy, it reminds me of fake scoops or vents on some sport cars or sport image cars, which are actually completely non-permeable and definitely don't lead anywhere or do anything. They're aesthetic trim yes, but they're also a... Dunno, pretense? It reveals a slightly "wannabe" attitude. Though it's possible I'm reading too much into the whole thing - non functional spoilers / wings don't bother me nearly as much on cars. Maybe fake shutters just look cheesier? So I guess that fake brick feels like non functional spoilers. Fake shutters feel like non functional scoops.

bombcar 5y ago
If you dress up for the opera, take a look at your clothes - almost every aspect will be some “fake aesthetic” that has become standard. I was hoping for more detailed reasoning beyond “it’s fake and not a great imitation” - but so are many other vestigial fashion items. Ties don’t work well as bibs anymore, after all.
- harg 5y ago
  Except that even smart clothes have a functional use: as clothes. Fake shutters have no utility value. A closer analogy to dressing up for the opera would be artisanal hand-carved decorative (but functional) shutters basic plain shutters. They both have the same utility but one has nicer aesthetic.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  given the argument that good design is functional design fake anything that serves no functional purpose would, if that argument holds sway, be bad.
- wolrah 5y ago
  > If you dress up for the opera, take a look at your clothes - almost every aspect will be some “fake aesthetic” that has become standard. I agree wholeheartedly and find the idea of dressing up a specific way for anything but practical/safety reasons or costume parties to be silly. Most non-safety dress codes only exist to artificially segment the population.

philwelch 5y ago

The difference is that fake brick and fake columns can form visually convincing illusions. Fake shutters aren't a convincing illusion of real shutters, but they look enough like shutters that they aren't convincing as non-functional decoration, either. If you had fake shutters that were wide enough that I could imagine them being able to cover the window if they were able to close, I personally wouldn't be bothered by them.

bombcar 5y ago
What about real but collapsible shutters? They often come from above but they scrunch down to a smaller space than actual shutters would.
- philwelch 5y ago
  I don't have a problem with folding shutters, though I don't see them around much.
- WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
  I've seen them up north and I think they're a good fit there. I suspect (not sure) that they aren't as strong as single piece shutters and here on the Gulf coast it might make a difference. Noting here that I prefer typical shutters over rolldown protection. Hinged shutters are great to reduce light and the winds that rolldown are good for can lift off (gable strapped) roofs.

chana_masala 5y ago

There's nothing wrong with your view or the author's, however it seems like you're talking past each other because neither of you are each other's target demographic. This is like complaining about how bad JavaScript is as a language on a thread about React, or something. It's nearly irrelevant

joshspankit 5y ago
I challenge you: Which demographic wants fake shutters that are visibly useless?

JohnFen 5y ago

> This is like complaining about "fake columns" on a neoclassical facade. Or the non-structural "fake brick" on any modern building. It is. But I'm more on the author's side than not on this. I mean, fake shutters don't make me angry -- but I do notice them because they look so stupid. I feel similarly about most fake columns. Not so much about fake brick. I think I react that way because they're so obviously fake -- that's what makes them stupid. If they were decorative but plausible, I'd react differently. I suspect that's why I don't mind the fake brick -- most fake brick looks realistic.

jessaustin 5y ago
Fake brick may be fine; I haven't done an extensive survey. The fake rock sold for use on exteriors, however, is awful. If you're closer than twenty feet, the wood glue they use to paste it to the paneling is the most visible feature. Nothing that looks like mortar is used. Closer up, the "rocks" themselves start to look like those sold for aquariums. I suspect that the architects who spec these never visit their mistakes.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

Sometimes they can't even get them right as decoration: https://goo.gl/maps/j2P3kogSxbq1X3th7 https://goo.gl/maps/j2P3kogSxbq1X3th7

kstrauser 5y ago
How do I delete this?

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago

Shutters that close are terrifically useful for reducing light & noise and for storm protection (I'm in FL). What fake shutters do is endlessly remind me how marvelously stupid it is that that I don't have actual shutters.

galago 5y ago

People started to have short-grass lawns because they were pretending they were an estate house with livestock. That's a much worse waste of resources in my opinion, because most Americans have forgotten why they were doing it. It a zombie affectation.

katzgrau 5y ago
I get a certain (artistic?) satisfaction in bringing order out of natural disorder. Trimmed bushes, groomed/edged lawn, mulched beds - can't all be a throwback to a bygone era, can it?
- zdragnar 5y ago
  Keeping short grass helps keep vermin away from the house. It is pleasing to walk on, shoes or barefoot. It has an orderly aesthetic. HOAs and city ordinances that measure the height of your grass to within a quarter of an inch are absurd, but letting your entire yard go wild isn't great either. My house is surrounded by forest and wild grassy areas, but we still keep a buffer of short grass at least 25' on all sides (with some ornamental bushes and a few select trees) and I wouldn't give it up for anything.
snth 5y ago
I don't believe this one. I guess it's possible it was originally true, but I don't think it's relevant now. I've lived in a house where we let the lawn go. It got very brushy and wasn't usable by us anymore. It was difficult to even walk though. AND, by that point it was too high to cut back into shape with a regular lawnmower. So I keep my lawn trimmed for the practical reason of wanting to use it.
- gbrown 5y ago
  Well, sure, if you have a lawn and stop maintaining it, the result will suck. That’s not the alternative though, which is environment appropriate landscaping. Out west that’s often succulents and hardscape. Where I live in the Midwest, that’s perennial flowers and prairie.

Brian_K_White 5y ago

"just window trim, and there's nothing wrong with that" I agree! And so do my inflatable biceps!

brailsafe 5y ago

Speed holes on various upsettingly ugly vehicles would agree with you I suppose. I personally don't care about the function or lack-there-of, but many of your examples seem to embody the desolate nature of suburbia in the same way as awful cul-de-sacs, lawns, or Applebees; they're a bad compromise. If you don't need pillars, make something good using the framework you're operating in and add other decorations that aren't trying to be something they're not. Fuck fake pillars. They're as gross as the stupid greyish peach tan colour the house is painted.

aaron695 5y ago

> These "fake shutters" are just window trim Window trim serves a purpose. These do not serve the purpose of window trim I wouldn't think. They would have to have window trim underneath them. Window trim is purposeful and it needs to look ok or beautiful like any normal part of the house, like a roof or door. I think most people complain about fake brick or fake columns. Something like fake plastic wood flooring, again serves a purpose.

throw0101a 5y ago

> These "fake shutters" are just window trim, and there's nothing wrong with that. His problem is not that they're window trim, it is that they don't seem to even be trying to make them aesthetically accurate to the real ones. > Reason #1 They Don’t Fit […] If your window is 6 feet wide and your shutter is only a foot wide, who do you think you are fooling? You may not think it’s a big deal, but proportions matter. Putting undersized fake shutters on your house is like driving a big rig with 18 donut spare tires. Would it be that hard to have the shutters be the same area as the window for good proportionality? It's like having (fake) columns and not making the effort to making sure the measurements are right: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_order https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_order He wants people to make an effort to do things properly instead of in a slap-dash fashion. If someone wants a certain aesthetic look or feature, then actually try to re-create it. Otherwise why bother wasting people's time and money?

joshspankit 5y ago
“Would it be that hard to have the shutters be the same area as the window for good proportionality?” Considering one of the pics showed a window taking up 70% of the available space, I’d say the designer would tell you that having shutters with the same area as the window would be an impossibility.

oliwarner 5y ago

Non-structural brick and columns aren't the same thing at all. They look like they could be the real thing doing the real job. These shutters are visibly non-functional.

alkonaut 5y ago

Having fake brick anywhere or a column that doesn’t actually support anything is also terrible. If something looks like a stone or brick it better not be a thin fake thing on a piece of exterior sheeting. But I agree on the principle because the most common window trim today: muntins (Glazing bars) is almost invariably “fake” today, in that it doesn’t have the original function of breaking up the glass in smaller and cheaper pieces. Today it’s purely a trim. Seen that way, I guess there is nothing wrong with having shutters for the same reason. I do agree with the author on one thing though: if one does put fixed shutters on a house then at least make them plausible. Just get shutters that are half the window size. Choosing shutters 1/3 the window width makes little sense.