@SoonerFan Thank you for the kind words.
@TSO_Products You had asked me to do a wrap up prior. I think I can do that now that I've had some thinking time.
For my situation one of the hardest things to figure out was how to build these shutters so they'd fit my windows. I only have about an inch inside the casing to the window so inside mount which looks the best was not an option. Even if I put hanging strips inside the casing and used wrap around brackets there wasn't enough meat to screw the hanging strips into the window framing. The other consideration would've been that the shutters themselves would be much narrower and with wide 3.5" slats I didn't think it would look right. That left me with mounting them outside the window.
The next hurdle was I had to mount them to the window trim. Had they been designed to be full size covering the entire window the option is to build a square frame to install the shutters to. But we wanted the top window uncovered as our house is up slope from the street at the end of a cul de sac, not worried about privacy. And I was told I wasn't allowed to take the window trim down to replace it with a frame. That really made things tricky. The hinges are flush mount and non adjustable. Any adjustments I needed or will need to make to get the two doors to line up with each other is done via the hanging strips. One of the windows the shutters wouldn't close the gap was too tight so I had to shave 1/16" off each hanging strip and re-mount. To help mount the hanging strips to the existing trim I rabbeted the ends to help hold them square to the trim.
At this point I'm not sure what I can do to make adjusting them easier with the limitations above. I'd love to have the adjust ability of a euro cup hinge and I know one shutter company claims to have come up with a system to use them. I made sure to keep each shutter the same so if I ever do come up with a better mounting solution they should all be interchangeable.
The paint also did not come out the way I had hoped. I picked a Semi-Gloss but what is on there is more of a Satin. I chalk this up to having to thin it so much to spray through my HVLP. I'm already thinking in the summer I'll go back and hit it with a Gloss thinned the same amount to hopefully end up at the Semi Gloss I originally wanted.
