We’ve been living in our construction site for well over six months now and with so much progress happening on the inside, I’m pretty embarrassed to say that slim-to-nothing has been accomplished on the outside. Today, that changes. Cue the front porch before pictures.

Lots of white going on. Lots of old, dirty, spider web-hued white going on…while I wasn’t quite ready to go to town with a paint brush, I had a serious hunch that switching up the boring white shutters with a few board and batten cedar beauties would be amazing.

This was not my first cedar shutter rodeo. Right around a year ago I was DIYing the same style of shutters for the old house. For the first go-round, I assembled the shutters before mounting them on the exterior of the house (click here for that how-to). On this house, however, I had a different idea in mind. Same shutters, different game plan.

For this project—we’ll call it Project Cedar Shutter 2.0—I decided to build the new shutters directly on top of the existing shutters. The existing shutters were actually of pretty darn good quality—sturdy and in great shape—but the main reason I took this route was because the old shutters were coated in layers and layers of paint that would likely rip the front porch siding to shreds in an attempt to remove them. I was not prepared to ruin my day with that obstacle.

So I started by measuring and cutting 1 x 6 cedar planks to just a smidge (maybe an inch) longer than the existing shutters. Then using exterior screws, I secured them to the old shutters, making sure the screws would be well hidden behind the horizontal pieces of cedar that would go across the top and bottom of each shutter when finished.

Once all of the vertical boards were secure, I added the short horizontal pieces 12 inches from the tops and bottoms of each shutter.

Here we are half way through. Big difference. Huge.

One more pair of shutters just like the first and this DIY was a wrap.

Lots left to do on the old front porch to-do list but not a bad start, especially when a couple comfy chairs made for sauvignon blanc sipping work their way into the mix.

Cara Hazlewood is a real estate broker and a devoted do-it-yourself-er. She writes about her home transformations on her blog, Live the Home Life.