boarding up windows - practically for free

i wanted an easy way to board up a front window in my house.

some of the problems i faced was:
1. it had to be easy to put away in storage
2. it had to be light weight since i cant drill or mount anything to the house siding/flashing
3. i wanted it to be waterproof.
4. it had to be cheap and or cost effective

well i managed to hit 3 of my 4 criteria.

i used large sheets of cardboard that i had from just purchasing outdoor furniture. i broke down the boxes to utilize the largest section of the cardboard. any retailer, store, etc is always throwing out cardboard..... or just buy some uhual moving boxes.

next thing i did was cut strips to make it look like wood planks and laid them on top of each other on the cardboard.

to glue the cardboard together i had some vinyl floor tile glue laying around. the label said it works on multiple materials and at first i was hesitant about it. but it did the job nicely.

then i spray painted the edges of each "board" with black spray paint. (make sure to leave the center of the boards brown)

then i took some white/greyish color paint sample the wife had laying around and used a 2" paint brush to gently brush on the highlights. the trick here was to use a brush with very stiff bristles and to somewhat water down the paint. also dab and blot the brush on a towel or piece of scrap cardboard to get most of the paint off. its almost as painting with a dry brush.

the next few steps i have not taken pics of yet. but my plan is to paint nail heads on the ends of each board to look like they are nailed together.

and to hang this piece on my window i plan on cutting a small 1" square hole in the top corners of the cardboard. then i will use two of the medium size 3M adhesive hooks and stick them to the metal flashing. after halloween i can easily remove the hooks.

since i had all the materials, paints and glue this project cost me $0 so far. i will have to buy the hooks which should be under $15