The Colorful Shutters of New Orleans, Plus A Video

When I was in New Orleans last week, I had a love affair with their colorful shutters. They were everywhere in the French Quarter, as were lots of pretty wrought-iron balconies decorated with window boxes spilling their flowers out into the streets.

New Orleans French Quarter With Wrought Iron Balconies & Colorful Shutters 19

 

Color!

New Orleans French Quarter With Wrought Iron Balconies & Colorful Shutters 15

 

Vivid beautiful color!

New Orleans French Quarter With Wrought Iron Balconies & Colorful Shutters 17

 

I was fascinated by all the shutters–shutters with real working parts that open and close, unlike the pretend shutters you see on so many houses today. I wonder if they batten them down when hurricanes are predicted…I bet they do.

New Orleans French Quarter With Wrought Iron Balconies & Colorful Shutters 21

 

My most favorite shutters were these.

Turquoise Blue Shutters in New Orleans 6

 

Turqoise blue…

Turquoise Blue Shutters in New Orleans 1

 

Sooo pretty!

Turquoise Blue Shutters in New Orleans 2

 

Loved all the flowers! All they still called window boxes when they’re attached to the shutters instead of the windows? Maybe we should call them shutter boxes, not be confused with shadow boxes. 🙂  Whatever they are, they are beautiful, aren’t they?

Turquoise Blue Shutters in New Orleans 5

 

In addition to colorful shutters, there are some pretty colorful characters on the streets of New Orleans.  I caught a 20 second gap in the traffic zooming by and filmed a short video of a group of street musicians…a little New Orleans flavor for your weekend.

Pssst: Click the four arrows down in the right hand corner to view full screen. Hit “escape” when done.

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Comments

  1. Great post, Susan! Those turquoise shutters are wonderful! There is nothing like the character that makes up New Orleans!

  2. Peggy Thal says

    Love all the pretty colors of the shutters. The turquoise ones look beautiful with the black iron work. It looks like you had a wonderful time in the Big Easy. I can only imagine what delicious food you ate. The music is fun. Thanks for sharing!

  3. bobbi duncan says

    Love the colors–so cheerful– and the hanging flower baskets are charming. I just know you had a wonderful tour. Thank you so much for the close-up views–almost made me feel I was there and, hopefully, one day, we will get to visit New Orleans and those lovely old plantations. One thing I really miss are those big old live oak trees that we had in our yard when we lived in Winter Park, FL.–they were great for tree forts, swings, and great silhouettes against an early evening sky.

  4. Linda Page says

    These are great pictures, Susan. I am so glad that you fell in love with NOLA!!!! It is like being there again when I look at your pictures.

  5. I was in nola last week as well.I have been fortunate to have visited over 10 times in the past 4 years as my son attended loyola. The city is never-ending magical Jewell box! Colleen

  6. Turly Bower says

    Thank you so much for the short tour. I loved it and as I’ll never get to New Orleans, I feel like I’ve savoured a little bit of it. Thank you again

  7. Wow it does look so inviting and I love the bright colors- so very cheerful! I like the window boxes on the shutters- great look! I enjoyed the snippet of entertainment!

  8. Hi Susan. I love the pretty shutters on the houses. I sure hope your grass turns green. I know this worries you, but so glad you are better now than you were this time last year. Isn’t it today that your beloved Max passed away? I know your pain when you lost him, being a true animal lover. I know you said once you also had a Golden, that was just the time I found your blog and only saw one picture of him. So pretty. I have two. Have a wonderful weekend.

    • Thanks, Linda. You know, I never keep up with dates so I would need to look back at my old posts to see. That is so sweet for you to remember him and the date. I still miss him so much, not a day goes by that I don’t think about him. Hope we see our furbabies again one day. Goldens are special dogs…very sweet. I miss my Jake, too. My heart just can’t take losing anymore…I’m too fragile for it now.

  9. Andrea J. says

    We visited New Orleans in June last year and I want to go back. I would love to take my time and explore!

  10. I thought this LA Realtor’s explanation about the use if shutters was interesting. Thanks for sharing the photos. I love all those architectural details, too.

    • Did you have a link with your comment? I guess the new comment system deleted it. I saw that on another comment from someone else…they appeared to have linked to something and it was missing.

  11. Beautiful, charming, fun, interesting, nice change from the usual brick and mortar towns. I loved New Orleans when I visited and the food!!

  12. Love the photos! Going to New Orleans is on my bucket list of things to do. I have always wanted to go there!

  13. Margo Kuhn says

    They are beautiful. When I was in France recently, there was one particular town we went through that had a lot of the colored shutters, our tour guide told us that the color was chosen to detour an insect and different colors would detour different insects from flying into their windows. Don’t know how true that is, but makes for an interesting conversation.

  14. Pam ~ CC says

    They literally are “street” musicians, aren’t they? Seems dangerous! That was a cute video. 🙂

    It’s funny that you said that about the window boxes because when I was drooling over the balcony with the flower boxes I was thinking, do we call them ‘rail’ boxes? Haha. I smiled about them hanging on the shutters. They wouldn’t be able to close those too quickly! But they look so pretty against that Turquoise. I’ve never been to New Orleans, so thanks for the trip.

    • Yep! They were playing on the edge of the street. I guess the city doesn’t mind them setting up “shop” there. I know, I was wondering if they have a quick system for un-attaching the planters when bad weather is coming.

  15. Sandi Lee says

    It’s on my bucket list too. Have always wanted to go there and on the New England tour in the fall.

  16. I live a little over 2 hours north of New Orleans visited the French Quarter for the first time in January. I’ve been to other areas of New Orleans but not the French Quarter. The shutters are so bright and beautiful! There are still a lot of new construction around us that use the cast iron hardware to make their shutters work instead of just being screwed on. My husband is a trim carpenter and part of his job is to hang them and over 50% of his customers get working shutters. I’m still trying to figure out how to put them on our house!

    • Wish they did that here, Tammy! I think that may be making a bit of comeback. here. I have seen them on some of the really high-end home. I’m sure they are more expensive to make and to install. So glad to hear you are seeing them coming back…I just love how they look!

  17. Thanks for the tour!! Love all the shutters……and the free expression of the use of exciting color!!! Up here we seem to be toooooooo conservative!!!

  18. (I just lost my first post)
    Woweee, Susan just love all the colours, I really really, want to go there.
    We were considered daring by the neighbours when we had our house stuccoed in yellow and all the doors and wrought iron window baskets in black…..hmmm…wonder what they would think if I chose turquoise!! 🙂
    Looking forward to the rest of your tour!!

    • Uh, oh…sorry Megan…hope it doesn’t do that again. The turquoise is so pretty, though…especially with flowers. Megan, I took so many pictures, it may take me all summer to share them!

  19. LOVE ! NOLA!

  20. I just bought weathered blue vintage shudders to use for ornamentation by my patio Lutyens bench…I hung plates on them. franki

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