Reclaimed Shutters
Material: Reclaimed timber shutters · Origin: Peak District, Lake District & Oxfordshire
The Brief
This project came at the end of a careful restoration of a 17th-century farmhouse in Cumbria. The owners, an artist and architect couple, had taken the house on with real affection and a clear aim, to gently bring it up to date without disturbing an ounce of its original character. Much of the modernisation was about insulation. Double glazing was carefully fitted into the old timber window frames, insulation was packed into the rafters, and we were asked to make and install internal shutters on all sixteen of the house’s windows.
Brand new shutters, however well made, would have sat uneasily against centuries of worn plaster, softened edges and painted timber. So rather than making them from scratch, we set out to find existing shutters that, with a little adaptation and restoration, would settle into the house as though they had always been there.
The Search
The hunt took us from farmhouses in Oxfordshire to garages in the Lake District, but the real breakthrough came in a barn in the Peak District. There we found a haul of shutters that someone had been collecting for years, intending to fit them in their own home but never quite getting around to it. The variety of sizes and shapes in that collection was almost too good to be true, and it moved the project from idea to reality almost overnight.
From there, each shutter was matched to its window, adapted to fit the opening and restored, taking care to keep the knocks, worn edges and layers of history that give old joinery its character.
As found, before restoration
Worn paint, before restoration
The Result
Through the winter months the shutters have made a real difference to how well the house holds its heat. But they have also become something more tactile, a part of the house that is handled every day. Folding them back to let in the morning light, and closing them again as the evening draws in, neatly bookends the day. It quickly becomes a small ritual, and one that keeps the house in step with the natural rhythm of the seasons.
