Sunday, December 4, 2011

Skirt Boards and Christmas Wreaths

63 degrees - saw a Cardinal, Bluejay, Wren, Finch and Woodpecker today.

The weather was great this weekend and I spent most of it outside working in the yard and eventually a little bit of time on Sunday working on the Pointed Playhouse.  On Saturday I got up early and picked up Devon from an overnight sleepover that was held at her school gym.  This was part of her "outdoor education" program but I did notice the ceiling in the room where they were sleeping (indoor education?).  I then went to pick up nosegay flowers from the florist for Lauren as she had a dance on Saturday night at Cotillion and I was expected to dance with her.  I then went to the gas station and filled up the car and also a small one gallon can for the gas blower back home.

It took about five hours to blow most of the very small and thin leaves from the Willow Oak tree and to also get up on the roof and get the small fallen branches off and then blow leaves down from there too.  I used up the gallon of gas and still had a little left to do in the front yard but I will leave that for next week.  I got the white lights up on the two trees in the front, took a shower, put on a tie and ran off with Lauren to the dance.  I did not step on her foot once but she did step on mine several times.  I think she was too caught up in all of the spinning that she was doing when dancing to the Cuban Shuffle.

On Sunday I took some time to think about how I wanted to detail the skirt board that will be wrapped around the base of the small house.  I again could not find examples on the Internet of what I wanted to do and thought that this will be a large piece of exposed wood and it will be best to keep it simple.  Finally I decided on the correct size of the round over bit to use for the top and then I used a "V" groove bit in another router for the bottom.  This groove will be cut a couple inches from the bottom of the board and so I had to use a fence with the router.  I setup the two saw horses and first sanded the outside surface and then cut the two routed details and then cut the forty five degree ends before gluing and nailing them onto the house.  I also had to use my battery powered circular saw to even up some of the exterior plywood that was previously attached to the outside of the house that was not even.  In the end I had to take only about a half inch off of one side of the wall behind the tree.


Cutting the ends.
Getting a little help with the longer boards.
Skirt board wrapped around the base of the house.

My neighbor Joe came over and said that he was getting rid of some cabinets and an unused laminated counter and asked if I wanted them.  Of course!

Not in its final position but these cabinets will work well.
As always, dark fell on us, which means that I have more to finish up next weekend.  Once the skirt board is installed I can then begin putting up the trim work that will resemble the half timbers.

I was at Trader Joe's on Friday to get the required chocolate chip cookies for Devon's sleepover and saw these nice, small and real Christmas wreaths.  A couple small nails and wire got them to stay put on the doors.