Pillars

WORKING ON THIS PAGE. Will be updated as I complete the project!

Ok so starting with the frame. I built mine 20" x 16" so 2 2x4s cut to 20" long and 2 2x4s cut to 16" long. Screw the boards together like in the first picture. Then take 1X2 and cut them to the same length and screw together making a frame. Now taking 4 1x2s at 8' long attach them to the INSIDE of the 2x4 frame like in image 1.

Then once all 4 are attached, mark from the top down 1' from the TOP then take the 1x2 frame and put it over the outside of the 1x2s at the top and move it down to the 1' mark and attach with screws.

Now you have your frame.

Now taking pink foam insulation board attach one end of the board to the frame making sure the edge is over lapping the frame just a bit. I used sheetrock screws to attach the foam to the frame in 4 spots on each side. Now take a jig saw and cut against the 1x2 frame to get a correct cut on the foam board. DON'T CUT THE FRAME!

Do this all the way around till its completely enclosed.

If you want to access the inside of the pillar you might want to make a access door like I have in mine. I plan on putting yellow and red lights pointing out the top of the pillars and a fog machine in each one to shoot fog out the top and look like fire... As well as maybe a speaker in each.

Now making the stones. Take a pen soldering gun and remove the tip. This will allow for a larger wider groove. Measure down as far as you like the stones to be wide and mark the foam board all the way around, then go down the same amount and mark again, ect... You don't want to use straight lines when burning your grooves but you do want them to end in the same place every time. After the gun is heated up slowly drag it across the foam with a little pressure to create grout valleys. DON'T PUSH TOO HARD! you don't want to burn these grooves all the way through the foam. Once you have about 9 of these sections done all the way down now you want to create your sections for the bricks. Taking the soldering iron make your valleys going down shown in image one below.

Now paint the insides of the grooves. You can use whatever color you like, I chose white for visibility at night. Using a small paint brush I loaded it up and got as much of the crevices as I could. Don't worry about getting white paint on the outside, it will be painted over later.

Painting the stones. Here you want to take a stone color, I used mid gray. Taking a paint roller I simply painted the outside of the pillars. I painted 2 coats of gray.

So here you can see after the white paint in the grout areas are dry and the gray rock paint is dry. I then used black house paint bought at home depot and painted the top wood and bottom wood. You can also do this in white if you like. I did leave the 1X2s sticking out of the top for later mounting of the sign.

I of course already sized and cut out the sign before doing anything to the top of the pillars. You don't want to do ANYTHING to the top of the pillars until your sign is done. This way you will have the correct measurements.

Here you can see the top of the pillar. This shows the back 2 1X2s were cut completely off and the front 2 1 X2s were cut down to about 3 inches. The sign that will go on top of the pillars will have holes burned out of the bottom of it and fit right down over the 3 inch 1X2s. This will hold the sign in the correct place. Then you can also see here I put in a back brace for the sign. We will get into this more later. But for now, lets work on the sign!

Here is the starting of layering the inside of the sing with aluminum foil. This will give a reflective backing for your Christmas lights. I am not going to go into great detail here about making the sign, there is more detail in my section on SIGNs.

Here I am attaching the Christmas lights to the foil with hot glue. Just to make sure the lights stay down somewhat flat, I glued every light fixture down. I started at the top of the sign and hung the plug-in over the edge. We will burn a slit for the wire later. So go all the way around the inside "outer" boarder of the whole sign. Top and bottom. Then go down about 2 or 3 inches with the light string and continue gluing the lights down until the whole board is covered and you run out of lights. Now I used the chaser lights for this sign because I like the way they fade and chase and change colors constantly. You can use whatever kind of Christmas lights you want but these give the best results. "I THINK"