This summer has been all about projects around the house so sewing projects are taking a back seat. And that's OK. Sometimes it's nice to take a breather; it re-energizes my desire to sew. One of my fun summer projects was to build a little free library. I've always wanted one since I read about how the movement started in Hudson right here in my home state of Wisconsin.
They can be fashioned out of recycled materials and made up of anything your imagination can come up with. So my husband dug through all his leftover scraps and came up with enough materials to build one. We chose a pre-made plan but decided to make some adjustments in order to make it our own style. The plan we chose had more to do with the design on the inside of the library than on the outside.
For Mother's Day this year my son and husband went about the chore of digging a post hole and installing a 4x4 post in the hole. It didn't only take some brawn and sweat, it took a plan to call Digger's Hotline well in advance. And as it turns out, we had to move our chosen location a little to the south to stay away from buried gas and water lines. I also made a call to the city government to make sure I did not need any permits and to check to make sure I was working within all city ordinances. So once the post was installed we went about the building process.
In the meantime, I hung a little sign on the post stating: 'Coming Soon! A Little Free Library!'. My husband spent the rest of June making the body of the library and putting in the shelves. I painted and urethaned both the interior and exterior of the library over the course of a few weeks. It wasn't a fast process since I was at the mercy of the weather. We had many very hot and rainy days making the conditions unsuitable for painting. And I put 3 coats of everything on it since it was going to be exposed to the elements year-round.
On the 4th of July I was in the local parade. I had many neighbors shouting out to me, "When is that library going to be ready?!" I was thrilled that they were excited about it but it also felt a lot like adding stress to what was to be a fun project.
The entire library was done, the main box, the door and the roof panels were in place. However we needed to either put shingles, or cedar shake or something protective on the roof. We scoured the home improvement stores, Goodwill and the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store for ideas. We came up with nothing. By then July was done and we were heading into early August. That's when my husband came across some old siding from when we built our house. After looking at if for a few days he figured out a way to turn it into our roof covering. He fashioned a roof from aluminum siding and an aluminum corner post. It wasn't the right color, but anything can be painted. I got out my Rust-Oleum paint the covers any surface (including metals!) and away we went.
All that was left was to add our little embellishments and we waited until it was installed on the post that has been waiting so patiently all summer long.
This summer has been all about projects around the house so sewing projects are taking a back seat. And that's OK. Sometimes it's nice to take a breather; it re-energizes my desire to sew. One of my fun summer projects was to build a little free library. I've always wanted one since I read about how the movement started in Hudson right here in my home state of Wisconsin.
In the meantime, I hung a little sign on the post stating: 'Coming Soon! A Little Free Library!'. My husband spent the rest of June making the body of the library and putting in the shelves. I painted and urethaned both the interior and exterior of the library over the course of a few weeks. It wasn't a fast process since I was at the mercy of the weather. We had many very hot and rainy days making the conditions unsuitable for painting. And I put 3 coats of everything on it since it was going to be exposed to the elements year-round.
The entire library was done, the main box, the door and the roof panels were in place. However we needed to either put shingles, or cedar shake or something protective on the roof. We scoured the home improvement stores, Goodwill and the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store for ideas. We came up with nothing. By then July was done and we were heading into early August. That's when my husband came across some old siding from when we built our house. After looking at if for a few days he figured out a way to turn it into our roof covering. He fashioned a roof from aluminum siding and an aluminum corner post. It wasn't the right color, but anything can be painted. I got out my Rust-Oleum paint the covers any surface (including metals!) and away we went.
