So last week I was back on the road, this time for a residential painting conference in Charleston, South Carolina. Dad and I arrived on Tuesday evening and after checking into our hotel and grabbing a quick dinner, we decided to take a walk through the historic district of Charleston. As we strolled down East Bay Street and past Rainbow Row, I asked a question about capping on shutters and thus my lesson began (my father taught History for thirty years, so explaining things comes naturally to him).
We stopped in front of one of the colorful houses and he began by pointing out all of the different components that make up the shutter; stiles, rails, panels, frames, hinges, etc. Then he explained that shutters come in all sorts of varieties – flat, raised panel and louvered being the most commonly used. So, then he finally gets to the capping, which turns out is a piece of galvanized metal that is placed over the top edges of the shutter where the stile and the rail meet. The purpose of capping is to protect this joint from moisture damage.
Turns out that in Historic Charleston, capping shutters is not permitted. It would alter the look of the home from its original state, no longer making it “historically correct”, and on many of the homes we passed the shutters were worse for the wear. Luckily for us “Northerners” historic preservation is not a frequent concern when updating and maintaining the exterior of our homes.
Capping your shutters is an option, and a smart one at that. It will help protect against damage often caused by the elements (which is a common issue in our area). Most capping can be painted to match the color of your shutters, so unless someone is inspecting your home from up close (seems to happen quite a bit in Charleston), they will never see the capping, just your beautiful and fully in-tact shutters.
