Carpenter Mocks Ridiculous Window Shutter Solutions On His Instagram, So Here Are 30 Of The Funniest New Pics

Now, if you’ve ever seen a house, you might have noticed these things on windows called shutters. You know, those wood (and wood-like) side-flaps for windows that serve a lot of purposes, including security, protection, and aesthetics?

Well, sometimes form takes precedence over substance and people end up with some interesting results that also end up on the Craftsman Blog. Scott Sidler is a historic preservation contractor and the man behind the Instagram page, and aims to teach people through example. Very failed example. Bored Panda got in contact with him for an interview.

As a preservation contractor, Sidler is often called in to fix mismatched windows and poor replacement shutters. At one point, he started snapping pictures to be used as educational material on what to do or not to do, all the while having some fun along the way.

You see, most people misunderstand shutters as an aesthetic accessory to the house, like a flower box. And though it can be that, it still needs to follow certain laws of pragmatics.

"In general, I feel like people have completely lost site of what a shutter is? Today, they are treated like an exterior window dressing so they are never installed with the proper sizing in mind. Very few people realize that a shutter shuts. It’s in the name after all," explained Sidler.

"I think most shutter fails stem from wanting something to dress up the outside of the house. Maybe it looks too plain and so people reach out to the simplest and cheapest way to add a pop of color that usually end up being a stock vinyl shutter at the local home store" elaborated Sidler.

"They often get the right height shutter (or at least close to it) and completely forget to measure the width. Honestly, most of the vinyl shutters on the shelves are a standard 18” so they don’t have much choice in the matter even if they did know what to look for without having custom shutters built."

Since the page has over 1,500 posts, with many of them being examples of window shutter don'ts, we've asked Sidler to describe a text-book example of a shutter fail that ends up on his Instagram more often than it should. And he had this to say:

"The simplest shutter fails are usually too narrow for the window. Most people don’t even notice it like I do. The next level ones are the fails that have rounded shutters on square windows or vice versa. The really crazy ones seem to be purposefully finding different shapes or sizes for their shutters. Seriously, how does a rectangular shutter work on an octagonal window?"

So, if you don't want to end up featured on the Craftsman Blog, here's what Sidler says you have to do... or if you want to end up, do the opposite!

"It’s so easy to avoid showing up on my Instagram page. Pretend your shutters would open and close (even if you plan on making them fixed). When they are closed they should fit to cover the window opening perfectly. If they don’t fit, you’ve got the wrong size or shape. And for the love of God don’t ever, ever put them on your garage doors!"