front porch railings.

So this weekend it was back to trying to finish up the two pairs of railings for the front porch. I had everything primed so I just needed to cut and assemble each railing. So around noon or so on Sunday I headed out.

Step One - chamfer the edges of the 2x4s to match the original porch railing design (which involved plunking down flippin' $30 for a router bit although as I was routing them I thought to myself it could have also been done on a table saw rather easily ... ) -

Step Two - bring the chop saw somewhere convenient rather than way back in the garage -

Then start measuring. And cutting. And measuring some more. And doing some math to figure out what sort of spacing to leave on each end of the vertical 1x4 slats. Which involved breaking out a calculator. Then cutting some more. I just did one to test building it before committing to cutting everything down. Brilliant.

So Step Three then was pocket hole drilling. I figured since I dropped twenty bucks on that bad boy jig I'm going to get some mileage with it -

So I drilled each vertical slat. Twice. On top and bottom. Well, I tested to see if one pocket hole would hold and it was a little flimsy cos the slat could move around so quickly chose to take it up a notch. Then I drilled the underside of each of the ballisters -

That jig really is awesome and I am serious when I say that I'll get some mileage with it. Pocket holes rule (in this case, it meant no brackets necessary to attach the assembled railing to the posts as well as to attach the slats).

Then onto Step Four - start assembling -

So I clamped a 1x4 to the 2x4, pre-drilled then screwed in some 2" screws. Then another 1x4 on top of that to make what resembled an I-beam. Then drilled in all the pocket hole screws to attach the slats to that -

Then Julian wandered out and grabbed the camera to take some shots of me working (apparently - I found these on my camera). Good times -

I was told to keep this pic for when I am old to look back on. Uhh, so I will.

Then the fun part ... seeing if all my measuring worked out by trying to fit the assembled railing in between the existing porch post and the one I buried in concrete two weeks ago. For this first one it was close - I had to cut some thin wedges for the bottom ballister to make it tight up against the original post but after it's all painted it won't be noticeable.

And then you have a railing on your stairs -

It's so much nicer I realized doing this kind of construction instead of furniture cos you can get away with hacks like that to make up for things not working perfectly. And using crappy, cheap lumber cos it's just painted and, well, outside. I have to lop off the top of the post at the exact height I determine and then install a cap that I have to build out of a 1x4, 1x5 and 2x6 (all cut into squares) that will match the caps on the original posts. And then do the other three. Well, I finished installing the other one on the left side of this and built the other two, but held off installing them on the smaller stairs cos I am also replacing all of the stair treads and kicks cos they look like total crap next to brand new railings and they'd be in the way on that set of stairs if I installed them. That and it was 8:00 and it was time to relax, pop in Avatar and eat some pizza.

A good day though. And my neighbor jokingly told me this was something that improved the value of both of our houses. Well, maybe not but it sort of helps the look of my pretty-crappy-at-the-moment-house.