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The shifting hue and undulating pattern in the grain of a genuine hardwood shutter is a source of natural beauty. The O'Hair Sandbrushed™ finish accentuates the grain by revealing the natural contours of the wood. Unlike the rough, abrasive sandblasted approach used by others, our sandbrush™ system uses rotating fabric brushes that create a smooth, gentle relief, resembling ripples of sand on a pristine tropical beach.
The Sandbrushed™ finish is available for all shutter styles, including center tilt panels, Horizon Tilt™, Pattern Horizontals™, Quarterburst™, and GrainSelect™. A full range of standard and custom paint and stain colors are also available (see dealer for details).
Did you know that the average "lifetime" shutter warranty is only good for around seven years? That is the amount of time that the average American homeowner lives in one home before moving on. The kids leave the nest or you are transferred to another location - things happen. As a result, the warranty ends when you move, which means that the equity from the shutters is reduced to almost nothing.
The O'Hair Transferrable Limited Lifetime Warranty™ is a whole other story. As it is transferrable, it is good for the life of your home, not just for the original homeowner, which means that the shutters retain their equity.
But this is just the beginning. Not only does the warranty cover the normal things that you would expect, but it even covers minor damage from pets and children. As seen in the photo, some dogs are more into chewing than others. The louvers were replaced. They kept the dog. No doubt, we'll meet again.
We have yet to deal with issues from pet beavers, wolverines or bengal tigers, but we can probably handle baboons and woodpeckers. If you have a pet skunk, that's your problem.
The real cherry on the cake, however, is the fact that O'Hair shutters are so well made that warranty repairs are pretty doggoned rare.
Many "faux wood" shutters are made from a material called MDF. It is wrapped in a thin, glued-on, plastic laminate that is printed to look like wood.
MDF is made of trash wood that is ground up, pulverized, mixed with glue and moulded to a shape. It is highly susceptible to humidity and moisture, which causes the MDF to swell, forcing the laminate to come loose. With a number of manufacturers, this is not covered in the "lifetime" warranty. Beyond this, many imported MDF shutters emit toxic VOCs.
Another issue is that faux wood shutters use a plastic pin inserted into a hole that is drilled into the end of the louver. Because of this, the louvers must be thicker. As MDF has little tensile strength, all it takes to wreck a louver is a bump of the elbow and the pin can break right through.
O'Hair shutters are built from solid American hardwood that is bookmatched for superior strength and stability – no plywood or foam cores. Rather than using pins, our louvers have monolithic tenons that are milled from the louver itself. No only is this stronger, but it provides superior strength in a slim louver profile.
It is an astonishing fact that many shutter manufacturers tell their customers that the tilt rods on their shutters are only for synchronizing the angle of the louvers and should not be used as a handle to adjust the louvers. They tell their customers to adjust the angle by moving the louver, not the tilt rod. This is like a cabinet maker telling a home owner that drawer handles are only for decoration and should not be used for opening the drawer.
The reason for this is that they attach their tilt rods to the louver with a wire staple in the tilt rod. As the tilt rod is not very thick, the staples must to be extremely short. The long staples in the louvers themselves may be reasonably strong, but the short staples in the tilt rod can easily pull out. In fact, this is the most common failure seen in wooden shutters from other manufacturers.
This can never happen with an O'Hair shutter because we use a continuous metal linkage that is embedded into a slot in the back of the tilt rod.
O'Hair Horizons™ feature twin side-mounted tilt rods that provide an unobstructed view, yet offer total privacy.
The tilt rods are attached to the edges of the louvers and feature a channel that interlocks with the shutter frame, totally blocking all direct light. The metal reinforced continuous linkage tilt rods, as with the entire shutter, are warranted for the life of your home. (see warranty for details)
The grain pattern of wood is a source of its beauty, but it is also responsible for the tendency of wood to twist and warp over time. O'Hair shutters are made to last, and like a fine musical instrument that is passed down through the generations, the wood from which they are constructed must be highly stable.
O'Hair Customs ™ and dealer-customized O'Hair Shutters™ retain their shape for generations because they, like a century-old master-built guitar, are constructed from bookmatched wood. In this process, the wood blank is split into multiple sections that are rotated and then bonded together. The result is a mirrored grain pattern that is not only beautiful, but is structurally stable and arrow-straight.
When you purchase shutters for your home, you want your investment to last. With O'Hair Customs ™ and dealer -customized O'Hair Shutters™, we guarantee it.
Many manufacturers hold their shutter panels together with just a few dowels at the corners and a bit of glue. This means that the actual surface contact area is minimal and the panel can easily break.
The rails (horizontal frame members) of O'Hair shutters are milled with a protruding piece (or "tenon") that fits into a corresponding slot (or "mortise") in the stiles (vertical frame members). Depending on the shutter design, the tenons range in width from just under two inches to over 11" for the largest rails. That is huge! In addition, they are assembled with tenon screws that draw the tenon tight for an unassailable bond.
With some competing panels, if you drop them on the corner, the entire panel can literally fall apart. O'Hair shutter panels are absolutely rock-solid and built for absolute reliability.
For more information, view our Ten Reasons presentation.
O'Hair offers the widest range of mounting options available. Rather than simply covering up existing trim or shimming in a commodity frame and concealing the gaps, O'Hair shutters are precisely tailored for each opening so that they can be smoothly integrated into the existing architecture.
The elegance of this formal study is enhanced with stained hardwood shutters from Hofer Wood Interior of Roanoake, Texas.
The natural woodgrain varies from one louver to the next. Rather than assembling the louvers in a random fashion, the O'Hair GrainSelect™ process arranges the louvers in a gradient sequence, creating a smooth transition from bottom to top.
O'Hair Exteriors™ are the first and only thermally modified exterior hardwood shutter and are ultra-resistant to pests and extremes of temperature and humidity. To learn more, view a PDF of the brochure.
O'Hair Exteriors™ are available in a full range of configurations. In this example we see both standard rectangular panels below and arched Pattern Horizontals™ above, with paired panels at the left and right of the balcony and a bi-fold style for the balcony door.
O'Hair Exteriors™ are constructed from thermally modified hardwood and are the most durable exterior wood shutter on the market.
O'Hair Exteriors™ add personality and warmth to a range of architectural styles, including colonial, spanish, mediterranean, ranch and more. This vintage 1890's style home was clearly missing something when it was completed. By adding our custom designed exterior shutters, the transformation was dramatic.
O'Hair Exteriors™ are the only thermally modified exterior hardwood shutters available anywhere. They are extremely resistant to extremes of weather and humidity and their construction is truly superior. They are also more than a mere decoration. Using our Stabilouver™ tension system they can transition from fixed louvers to fully adjustable, and they can be locked at any angle.
O'Hair Pattern Horizontals™ feature louvers that are fully synchronized from top to bottom, precisely following the shape of the window without stair-stepping. They are available with traditional center tilt rods or dual side-mount Horizon Tilt™designs.
A beautiful Mediterranean style home with a trio of massive nine foot tall gates enclosing a patio with three floor-to-ceiling glass double doors and O'Hair Exteriors™ hardwood exterior shutters.
A view of the western tower. The pale, desaturated color of the exterior shutters gives the home a timeless, old-world feel, adding the definitive touch to the design, transforming a building into a home.
The bahama style shutters provide
control of the strong southwestern
light for the staircase within.
Another view of the front entrance with a closeup of the window into the study. The shutters greatly enhance the impression of grace and casual comfort.
When the sun sets and the lanterns glow, the front of the home seems
to wrap around you, inviting you to view the mysteries within.
With twilight approaching, the exterior and interior lighting provide a feeling of relaxation and comfort.
An upper deck with a wide-open view of the gulf with privacy provided by O'Hair Exteriors™ .
Offering a full range of light control, this accordion configuration can be folded to provide an unobstructed vista. While available in louver profiles of up to 5", this thin-slat design provides the classic look of the southern coast, yet the thermally modified hardwood construction offers a level of strength and weather-resistance that can be found in no other hardwood shutter.
O'Hair Exteriors™ provide much more than beauty and style. They offer a level of durability and permanence that is unmatched by any other exterior wooden shutter you can buy. They are the only thermally modified exterior hardwood shutter on the market, designed and built with the ideal blend of computer-controlled precision and traditional joinery, and they are reinforced for extra strength.
Our exterior shutters are made in America from genuine American hardwood that is harvested from private forests, following the practices of sustainable forestry. Every individual panel is custom designed to your specifications and custom painted to precisely match your existing trim, using a combination of spectrophotometer instrumentation and decades of color matching experience.
At O'Hair, quality, precision, strength, durability and beauty are more than something to aspire to. They have been the gold standard on which the O'Hair family has built its reputation for 73 years.
A panoramic view provides a wonderful feeling of freedom.
When you are curled up in the comfort of your den with a good book and a nice cup of coffee, and you pause to take a sip and you find yourself surrounded by a beautiful yard and a lazy blue sky, that is a feeling that you will want to have every day. When you add to this the beauty, charm, privacy and light control of O'Hair Oceanview™ hardwood shutters, the only thing missing is a bit of soft music.
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