We Built A Little Free Library

We built a Little Free Library®!

Having a Little Free Library has been a dream of mine & it finally came true!

We actually completed this project in January but it took a while to get this little library in our yard!

Since we have harsh winters in our area, I wanted to wait until spring before we brought the library outside.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit & I was unsure if it would be the right time to open.

Finally, I decided to open (with precautions) a few weekends ago!

I love Little Free Libraries & I think they're just the cutest!  

Having a little library was something I considered having for a while.  I saw them all over Pinterest & thought they were the coolest thing!  I finally decided to construct my own after I saw an actual  Little Free Library in the wild one day.

We live in a fairly rural area & libraries are few & far between.  I wanted to make books accessible to the people in my area.  I also wanted to start reading more books & having a library close by would help me accomplish that!

The sky is the limit when building a Little Free Library.  I wanted ours to resemble our log home because I love when the libraries match their houses!

This is what we started off with!  It was just a cabinet we already had on hand but it was perfect for the base of the library.  From there, we built around it to resemble our home.

For the "logs", we cut down a few pieces of rough cut lumber & attached them to the cabinet.  We then went back through & filled in the gaps between the logs with more rough cut lumber pieces.

We then used the same rough cut lumber to build a base for the roof.  For the metal roof, we were able to go to the same person who did the metal roof on our actual house & have a piece of metal made to match.

Last summer, we stained our log home so we had the stain to match the Little Free Library.

For the door, we used a picture frame that fit perfectly!  We just put a piece of plexiglass over it & insulated it a little bit.

We built a chimney base on the top & used rocks we found outside to fill it in.  We used grout we already had on hand.

The only thing we actually bought for this project was the plexiglass & hinges/handle for the door.  Everything else we already had!

I'm kind of glossing over it here, but it really took a lot of work & time.  It also took a lot of thinking & planning to get it to match our actual home.  Our house is really unique so our Little Free Library had to be unique as well!

It was one of the more fun projects we've worked on this year & I hope that others enjoy it as much as we do!

Related Post:  Building & Maintaining A Little Free Library