Ah yes, a little wood working for the holidays.
My beloved Mother-in-law commissioned me to make a light house for her garden as a Christmas present to her this year. After studying numerous online examples, plans, and Pinterest posts, I came up with some conclusions.
- I lacked the skill to make an actual scale model of a light house out of wood.
- I lacked the time to make it out of wire mesh and cement. (Not to mention it would be a major pain in the rear to move with all of that weight.)
So I decided to create it out of landscape timbers. They would be stacked and form a hexagon when viewed from the top. Using the miter saw, I cut the pieces to the correct angle. When I say correct angle, well that is a relative term it seems. The selection of timber has been low during the pandemic, so most of the wood was not straight.
Cut and stack … cut and stack….
Eventually, I decided I wanted to change the stacking design slightly to allow for the appearance of windows. I then used a 90 degree stacking angle with some mitered ends.
I found a “top”, after searching for a while. It appears light house tops are not the most popular item to purchase. I found one on Amazon, but the shipping was over a month. Well I had some time and ordered it. Thankfully the item got to me before Christmas, after a three week wait.
So back to the garage for one final push to finish the creation. With all the pieces of timber cut and secured in place, I set the top on and gave it a survey.
The lighthouse top, is a pre-built, solar powered device. It has a small solar panel built in, with a night/day sensor. Like most solar powered devices, it houses a small replaceable AA battery. To replace the battery, and get at the on off switch, the top would have to be removable. It is fitted with a white LED and rotating mechanism to simulate a real light house.
Into the house it went, as it was too cold in the garage to properly apply paint to it. My wonderful wife, Gina, was kind enough to do the painting. As much as I love to build things, painting has to be one of my least favorite aspects of any build.
Before all the paint was applied I decided to glue magnets onto the top of the wooden structure to hold the top in place. This would also allow for easy removal when needed.
With all the paint dried, it was time to haul it over to my Mother-in-law’s for the big Christmas unavailing!
