Gloria's Fairy House

This is the story of a special present to celebrate a very special birthday for a very very special person. This is the story of Gloria's Fairy House.

For her birthday this year, I tried something I've never done. I built her present, I didn't cook it.

It started about 18 months ago when we got new windows for the house. I salvaged some of the old windows before they were taken away. I think they were original to the house when it was built in the 60's. So they have some history with the property.  I also picked up a couple more from an architectural salvage place called Second Chance in Baltimore.

The six-pane windows were from the house and the square two are from Second Chance.

The first step was to build a solid foundation. I tried to cut down the spindles to use as legs, but they were too flimsy to support the project I had in mind. So, I came up with an alternative to be sure the Fairy House would be solid.

With a base built, I turned to building a box to mount the windows. Pretty straightforward DIY stuff, but still new to me since I'd never tried anything like this before. The closest I had done was putting together IKEA furniture.

Here you can see the new base and the frame for the roof pieces.  I actually used my high school geometry to calculate the size of the roof frame based on the size of the two windows I had for the roof. 

After the frame of the house was built, it was time to attach the windows.

Windows attached!  And I even included two hinged windows to allow for easy access to the interior.

I was feeling good about the project. It did end up being larger than I had envisioned and is really too big for the spot I was thinking about putting it out front of the house.

It was done in time for her birthday and I moved her Fairy Garden from under the bushes by the front door to the new Fairy House under the cherry tree in the backyard.

I don't know if it was more fun for me than for Gloria, but I really enjoyed tackling it and having a successful project done in time for Gloria's birthday party.

Happy Birthday my love and thanks for all the magical moments we've shared over the years we've had together.