Exterior Window Treatments:
Outdoor Window Shades, Trim & Decor Ideas
From Tuscany & Northern Italy

---

Exterior window treatments in Italy are all about expression.

Simple, fancy, flirty or elegant, baroque or rustic - there's one thing Italian outdoor window treatments have in common: They're colorful.

Get inspired by 30+ pictures of outside window treatments & easy to copy ideas, and create your own exterior window treatments with a rich, warm Mediterranean look!

1. Learn how Tuscans use flowers to add rich, vibrant color to their windows with

• metal rings

• wrought-iron or wire windowboxes

• wall-mounted terracotta planters &

• climbing plants.

2. Have a look at how Italians use outdoor wood shutters and awnings ...

... and how you, too, could add some old-world romance to your exterior window treatments.

3. Study pictures of window treatments from city and country homes in the Italian Alps that are all about color and ornament, and give your outdoor window treatments an 'artsy' edge with

• simple 'eyeliner' paint,

• ornaments that take their cues from baroque and Palladian examples, and

• Italian-inspired color schemes.

(Return to Top)

Exterior Window Treatments From Tuscany, Part 1:
Flowers, Vines & Window Boxes

No matter how small the opening, there's always space for a flowerpot in a Tuscan window. (Oh, make that three, five, or ten  flowerpots ;-)

If there is not enough space on the windowsill - and there hardly ever is - the pots are fixed to the wall below the window (which keeps them nicely out of the way of functional exterior shutters).

Sometimes the flowers 'spill' onto the walls to the sides of the window as well.

There are several ways of creating a display like this, and many Tuscan exterior window treatments combine all of them.

(Return to Top)

a) Metal Rings

A wall covered entirely in flowerpots like these is not unheard of in Tuscany!

Generally, Italians prefer untreated, simple terracotta pots for their exterior window treatments - I've never seen rustic windows in Tuscany that were decorated with glazed, painted, or otherwise fanciful flowerpots.

The simple window treatments blend well with Tuscan stone walls and show off the deep, glowing color of the flowers in all their glory.

How do they do it?

Simple & ingenious - bend a metal rod into a round eyelet with a 'handle', and insert that handle securely into the wall. Here's what the construction looks like from above, without the flowers ...

... yep, that's space for eleven flowerpots ;-)

HOT TIP
How To Fake Tuscan Exterior Window Treatments
When You're Nowhere Near Tuscany

Version 1)

You need a length of sturdy gardening wire and a strong hook per flowerpot.

Find something you can use as a spacer (e.g. some kindling or a pebble) and hold it to the side of the flowerpot, as illustrated. Wrap the wire (not too tightly) around the pot and the spacer a few times.

Then pull out the spacer, and twist the excess wire into a loop. Make sure the wire is tight enough and cannot slip over the rim of the pot, and the eyelet is large enough to fit over the hook.

Place the hook in the wall where you want the flowerpot to go ... job done!

Version 2)

Install a trellis below and/or to the sides of the window.

Wrap gardening wire around each flowerpot (as in Version 1), and hang loads of pots onto the trellis with butcher hooks.

For added oomph, paint the trellis dark green, or any color that works well with your house and your flowers. This is not a strictly Italian style of exterior window treatments, but in the absence of colorful outdoor wood shutters, a painted trellis can add interesting texture and color to the façade of your home.

(Return to Top)

Wrought-Iron or Wire Baskets

This type of exterior window treatments is very common in Tuscany.

• Suspend a wire basket from the windowsill;

• Strap a few wire baskets to the inside or outside of your balcony;

• If you have a grilled window with decorative wrought-iron bars, attach a wrought-iron window box to the grille.

Then pack the container tightly with pots of herbs and geranium.

In Tuscany, sometimes these metal window boxes have additional rings attached to the rim for even more flowerpots, so they really are overflowing with rich, hot color.

(Return to Top)

Terracotta Wall Planters for Rustic Windows

Wall mounted terracotta planters like these are easy to install.

If they have a wide enough hole in the bottom you can plant straight into them ...

... otherwise it's better to fill them with potted plants to ensure sufficient drainage.

(Notice how the planters are all quite simple but still different enough to add some interest to this type of exterior window treatment.)

(Return to Top)

Wall Crawl

If it suits your tastes and your home, you could simply grow your exterior window treatments.

In Tuscany, the plant of choice is often star jasmine (trachelospermum jasminoides), as shown in this picture.

Star jasmine loves sunshine, can handle heat, and the elegant white blossoms have a lovely fragrance.

If you live in a cooler part of the world, try hardy climbers like

• climbing hydrangea (hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris)

• a climbing rose like Gloire de Dijon (a.k.a. "Old Glory") or the beautifully scented Madame Alfred Carrière,

• a clematis, for example the vigorous, evergreen clematis armandii,

• or a wisteria.

(Return to Top)

Exterior Window Treatments From Tuscany, Part 2:
Outdoor Wood Shutters

Outdoor wood shutters serve several purposes. They ...

• keep a room cool (well, sort of) and dark

• some models can be angled out to allow airflow while providing shade. All models ...

• punctuate the façade of a house with color and texture.

Occasionally, outdoor wood shutters can also serve to install audio entertainment (photo right ;-)

In addition, many Tuscan windows have indoor window shutters. They are either fixed to the interior wall, or directly to the window frame.

(Return to Top)

Exterior Window Treatments From Tuscany, Part 3:
Awnings

Not all windows in Tuscany have outdoor window shutters.

Those that don't sometimes have an outside curtain for sun protection.

It can consist of just a piece of sailcloth hung across the top of the window ...

... or it can be a regular curtain of outdoor fabric in front of a balcony door, suspended from a curtain rod on the outside wall.

On hot days, these curtains are often turned into makeshift awnings by slipping them across the balcony railing.

Modern awnings like the one to the right are relatively rare in old Tuscan villages and small towns; you'll see them mostly on new buildings.

(Return to Top)

Exterior Window Treatments From Northern Italy, Part 1:
"Eyeliner" Paint

The above are pictures of window treatments on small farmhouses in the Italian Alps. I like the simplicity and effectiveness of these three-color schemes.

The second window from the right combines the crisp look of the exterior window treatment with a useful function for the interior: Painting the recess white helps reflect sunlight into the room and, to some extent, makes up for the smallness of the window.

These two pictures of window treatments from Northern Italy take the 'eyeliner' approach a bit further by adding some flourish and, if you look at the left photo, a stylized keystone ornament. It's an easy-to-copy look that can be very effective, even if you just add a skinny line around the window and a very small ornament (in a contrast color) above the center of the lintel.

(Return to Top)

Exterior Window Treatments From Northern Italy, Part 2:
Baroque-Inspired Exterior Window Trim

Many antique town centers in Northern Italy retain beautiful Baroque features in their architecture - but you don't need to live in a 17th-century home in Italy to be able to enjoy this style yourself.

Last spring, I visited some towns in the foothills of the Italian Alps and took photos of exterior window treatments you could adopt for your own home, wherever you happen to live.

So here are some pictures of window treatments that show both the original idea and their translation into a modern or simplified version.

The photos above show a smart take on the ornament above the lintel. The ornament in the picture to the right was carved out of wet plaster at the time the house received its outer coat. The contrast between the white and light gray is minimal and, in combination with the 3D surface, gives this exterior window treatment a sophisticated look.

To the right, one of my favorite exterior window trim ideas:

Palladian grandeur rendered with a humble paintbrush!

(And notice how the exterior window trim of the "original" [left] makes the window look at least twice its actual size!)

Next, a very pretty but labor-intensive version of the Baroque garland ornament (photo left).

This is quite a high maintenance solution for everyday exterior window treatments - but could you see yourself creating your own version of this for the next Holiday season? How about binding an evergreen Christmas garland with red ribbon, and planting the window box with fiery red cyclamen? (Just a thought.)

Anyway, here's another set of exterior window trim ideas:

This type of corner design was popular from the Renaissance onward. Of course it's really nice to have a 3D version made by a plasterer, but it's also expensive. You could easily create the illusion of an exterior window trim by using masonry paint (there's another example of this in the next chapter, below).

(Return to Top)

Exterior Window Treatments From Northern Italy, Part 3:
Color Schemes

Having started out this page by praising the Italians' love of color, I feel I owe you at least some examples of how to use that color in your own exterior window treatments.

Here they are (they also make nice house paint color ideas!):

Buff yellow and green, with some white thrown in, is a popular color combination on Italian houses.

You'll find yellows with a lot of terracotta in them, as well as zingy, lime-infused tones, but the latter are quite rare in the north.

If your house is painted white or gray (or any other non-yellow color), skip the yellow altogether and just use two tones of green for your exterior window trim.

Here's one of the most-used exterior paint color combinations in home decorating (and in nature): red and green.

Unlike candy colors, these pastel tints are grayed and mellow, as if bleached by decades of sunlight.

If you've been to Italy, or had a look at the page about Tuscan color schemes, you will recognize 'dusty' pink as one of the mainstays of Italian house color schemes - not just for exterior window treatments.

These colors work well under a Mediterranean sun, but they tend to appear out of place in the cool Northern light.

The next set of colors on this list is subtly elegant, with not a trace of warmth to it, except for the deep brown.

This is the most 'northern' house color scheme of the collection (the colors would be perfectly at home in a Gustavian interior.)

You can use this palette successfully for exterior paint color combinations anywhere in the world, under any type of light.

If you were to add flowers as exterior window treatments, reds and pinks look great here, with fresh (or dark) green foliage.

The last sample in this collection (below) is taken from a Baroque-style mural in Northern Italy - a colorful exterior window treatment that was extended to include the entire wall.

I'm not suggesting that you paint your home in all these colors at once, but you could utilize the little swatches (or the whole mural) as a starting point for some house paint color ideas.

I'd say you're safe to pick any two swatches and combine them with a creamy or chalky white.

You could also dream up successful exterior paint color combinations from the top three, middle three, or lower three color swatches.

Whatever you do, add white accents with a liberal hand!

Here are a few ideas for house color schemes and exterior window treatments:

• paint the walls buff yellow and add very light gray 'eyeshadow' and cotto red 'eyeliner' paint around your windows, or

• paint the house a warm, misty gray, the window recess white, then add white windowboxes and red or sage green outdoor window shutters. Or,

• paint the walls a sage green, the window recess white, and add very pale, smoky blue 'eyeliner' and/or outdoor window shutters as exterior window treatments.

(Return to Top)

Yet to find the information you're looking for? Type a word or phrase into the search box below: