Mom picked up salvaged wood nobody wanted, completely transforms them with these ideas

Old window shutters are a DIY gold mine because they can be repurposed in countless ways. These architectural gems are relatively easy to come by if you scour your attic, thrift shop, and the local architectural salvage store. Our creative craft projects reimagine window shutters, so they can add unique style to your home.

Shutters are cottage style staples, and they can be painted, adorned with decorations, hung on your door or wall, or leaned against a mantel to amplify a farmhouse feel and warm up any space with hand-hewn rusticity. In addition to being pretty, our shutter crafts often offer practical advantages, too. Each of these projects is highly customizable and a true testament to the wonders of creative upcycling.

A wreath extends a visual welcome to your guest, whether it’s hung on your front door, on an interior wall, or positioned as a decorative component of your mantelscape. This project’s visual simplicity is the key to its elegance. You fashion the wreath by adorning a wire circle with faux flowers and a feather, which you can either collect in nature or purchase from a craft store. When the wreath is hung on the backdrop of an equally graphically bold shutter, you’ve got a phenomenal decorative accent that’s sure to elevate any space. Watch the tutorial for this DIY here.

Coating an old shutter with paint in an energetic shade immediately transforms it, but adding a pattern makes it unquestionably “next level.” In this DIY we add visual interest with a simple stencil and a second shade of paint. The finished product is a polished art piece that can serve as a unique addition to your gallery wall but also hold its own as the lone work on your wall. You can also make a few and hang them, which will create a powerful focal point in your space. Learn how to make these here.

This shutter project marries high style and practical functionality, a superior combination if you’re needing a breakfast-in-bed-type tray that’s super cute. By adding easy-to-make wooden sides, a front panel and furniture-style legs to your shutter, a to-go tray emerges. The finishing touch is a set of drawer pulls that become tray handles. The ones you pick will give your portable serving tray a dose of style that fits your personality, whether rococo and classic or streamlined and modern. Watch our tutorial here to learn how to make one.

A shutter tray that you can park on your coffee or end table means you’ve got a way to serve guests refreshments at a moment’s notice, or something to pile snacks on for movie night. This one has beachy colors and nautical rope handles, but you can opt for a single color or a different hue on every louver if you like. When you’re not using this tray to serve food and drink, it makes an appealing place for parking the remote, a scented candle or a few magazines. Watch the easy transformation here.

If your kitchen is short on storage, think about all you could stylishly store on a DIY cart, ingeniously fashioned from two window shutters and a wooden crate. Add some wheels, and portability makes the cart that much more versatile. You can use the top as a work surface, store oft-used utensils on it, or place a large, dramatic piece of decorative pottery on the lower shelf for a shot of color. This DIY is budget-friendly, gives your kitchen a personality injection, and provides you with a needed bit of extra space, all at once. View our tutorial here.

This window shutter DIY creatively uses a pair of tall shutters to become a garden shelf that’s ideal for placement in a corner, or as a standalone anywhere you want to add charm and warmth. Not only do the lines and angles of the shutters make a novel backdrop for the potted plants or beloved objects you choose to place on its shelves, the shelf looks right at home anywhere — on a covered porch, in a kitchen corner or as an entryway accent. Watch how to make this versatile piece here.

This eye-catching cottage-style fireplace screen can be crafted simply by connecting single shutters. The number of shutters needed, as well as their height and width, are determined by the size of your fireplace opening. Treating your shutters with chalk paint allows you to infuse your taste into the project even more, so it harmonizes with your decor and personal aesthetic. Learn to fashion a shutter fireplace screen here.