Louvered Bi-Fold Doors Turned Patinaed Shutters

I always like having shutters in my boutique so anytime I find a pair at one of my "sources" I usually pick them up. Unfortunatley for me, the ones I find don't usually look so great the way that I find them. But with a little paint & glaze or wax they can be easily transformed to look like they have a weathered finish that came from years of use.

I couldn't find a before shot of this pair so this picture of a similar pair will have to do. The finish on mine was a little darker than these the other difference was that mine had solid panels on the bottom half.

Here's what mine look like after a sparse dry brushing with some turquoise paint I picked up at Re-Store, as you can see I just went right over the hinges & everything. It takes A LOT longer to paint the louvered section by hand than if you were spraying it but to achieve this finish it's nessecary. I chose to let a good amount of the original wood finish show through (which looks really red in these shots).

After the paint dried I brushed a chocolate color glaze over the top to age them out & finished them with Minwax's clear Finishing Wax Paste - looking back I wish I would've used a brown wax to add to the patinaed look.

Here they are leaned up behind my French Farmhouse Daybed in my boutique. If you're a frequent Revamped reader you've probably seen these in the background of a few other shots. Although they were put on layaway shortly after I brought them in, the customer didn't pick them up right away so I got to show them off in my space a little bit longer. I have to say, they were pretty hard to photograph because of the louvered section & actually looked a lot better in person.

I had to throw my favorite picture with the shutters in. My three year old Olivia always sneaks in to the shot whenever she sees me take out the camera to get pictures of my work. If were up to her she would be the only thing I took pictures of, look at what a little poser she is! She knows she's cute!

I have a few more that I'm getting ready to finish & am looking for a few new ideas for how to display and or re-purpose them. Have any of you seen any good uses for these? I'd love some feedback!

Linking up to the following parties;

Primitive and Proper

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