Exterior Shutter Styles: Which Design Fits Your Home
Not every shutter fits every home. The four most common exterior shutter styles each carry different architectural DNA — pick the wrong one and your home reads out of period. Pick the right one and your façade tightens up in a way that photographs well and ages even better.
Here's a plain-language guide to matching shutter styles to home styles.
Traditional Board & Batten
Best for: Farmhouses, colonial homes, cottages, and craftsman restorations.
Board and batten shutters are the oldest and most recognized shutter style in American architecture — vertical boards held together by horizontal battens. If your home was built (or is designed to feel like it was built) before 1940, this is almost always the right choice. Board and batten reads as period-accurate on colonials, farmhouses, and early craftsman homes without trying.
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X-Bar
Best for: Farmhouses, mountain lodges, rustic craftsman homes.
The X-brace is one of architecture's most confident decorative moves — diagonal boards crossing in the center of a panel, originally used to structurally stiffen large doors and gates. On a shutter, it becomes a statement. X-Bar shutters read strongly from the street and give farmhouse, mountain, and craftsman exteriors the kind of character that suits heavier timber and stone facades.
Z-Bar
Best for: Farmhouses, colonial homes, craftsman homes, and any home aiming for barn-inspired character.
The Z-brace is the shutter equivalent of a signature — instantly recognizable, rooted in barn-door tradition, and just different enough from the standard board-and-batten to set a home apart. A single diagonal brace runs corner to corner, framed by horizontal top and bottom rails. Z-Bar suits rural properties, suburban craftsman homes, and new-construction homes aiming for character.
Horizontal Slat
Best for: Modern farmhouses, contemporary craftsman, coastal builds.
The most contemporary of the four styles. Clean horizontal lines that suit modern farmhouses, contemporary craftsman homes, coastal builds, and any exterior that leans toward the current rather than the traditional. Horizontal slat pairs naturally with board-and-batten siding, lap siding, and fiber cement panels.
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How to Choose
Three quick questions to narrow it down:
- When was your home built (or when is it designed to feel like it was built)? Pre-1940 → Board & Batten or Z-Bar. Modern build → Horizontal Slat.
- What siding does your home have? Lap siding or board-and-batten → any style works. Fiber cement or stucco → Horizontal Slat or Board & Batten. Stone or brick → X-Bar or Board & Batten.
- Do you want the shutters to be a subtle detail or a statement? Subtle → Board & Batten or Horizontal Slat. Statement → X-Bar or Z-Bar.
Still not sure? Email us a photo of your home's façade and we'll help you narrow it to one of the four styles.