We recently had our house painted. Of course, you can’t just put those old house numbers back on a newly painted house, so I made some new modern looking house numbers! This was a quick, cheap project that really spruces up the curb appeal.
Materials
- Scrap cedar (or whatever you have)
- Dowels for spacers (at least two 1 3/4″ long dowels per number)
- Wood glue
- Glue stick
- Sandpaper
- Exterior grade paint
Tools
- Scroll saw (jig saw will work too)
- Drill
Inspiration
The inspiration for this project was found on Pinterest (once again). This article served as the basis for the design. The article even includes the templates for the numbers. While they chose to use nuts and threaded rod for the stand-offs, I chose to simplify this, and just used some dowels that I already had laying around.
The Build
- I started by printing out the numbers that I needed, cutting them out, and pasting them onto some scraps of 3/4″ thick cedar with a glue stick.
- I drilled a hole in the middle of each number that had a middle cutout, so that I could insert the scroll saw blade through the hole for those cuts.
- I went to work on the scroll saw to cut out each of the numbers.
- I followed that up with some sanding to clean things up.
- I cut some dowels down to 1 3/4″ lengths to serve as the stand-offs for each number. These dowels were actually old handles from disposable foam brushes that I had saved… Yes, I’m cheap!
- I glued each dowel in place on the back of the numbers with wood glue and fired in one pin with the pneumatic brad nailer to hold them in place while the glue dried.
- I painted the numbers using some leftover door paint from our recent house painting. This was actually Reece’s idea. He’s a pretty smart kid. 🙂
- I positioned the numbers on the house where I wanted them and traced around each of the stand-offs to mark their locations.
- I drilled a 1/2″ deep hole with a forstner bit that was slightly oversized for each stand-off location.
- I used caulk to “glue” the stand-offs into the holes and attach the numbers to the house. The caulk also seals up the holes nicely, which is why I chose to do it this way.
Finished… Enjoy!
Till next time…