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DIY Entrance Pillars

DIY Projects· Landscaping· Renovations· The Exterior

16 May

Make a statement with these DIY entrance pillars.

DIY Entrance Pillar

Prior to moving in, Brett had mentioned here and there about wanting a statement entrance – you know… pillars, posts, a gate, etc. – to our house.

Since he usually doesn’t have a strong opinion on many of the things, I figured this would be a good project for him to take and run with.

We ran into a few hiccups along the way [shocking, we know], but it looks wonderful and Brett is happy – I’d say that’s a win.

This project began the weekend we poured the cement counter tops. We had some extra cement – the real fancy stuff you use for counter tops – and didn’t want it to go to waste.

Unfortunately, the cement dries extremely fast so while Brett was working on the counter top, my parents and I quickly dug two holes for the posts.

I didn’t know exactly what he wanted them to be squared off with, so we just winged it.

Wrong wing.

When Brett came out twenty minutes later, he said he wanted them facing the other way, so the post had to be dug up and reset.

DIY Entrance Pillars

So much for saving that concrete 😉

After getting the posts in and cemented down, we ended up filling in each hole with five more bags of concrete. Don’t worry, we used construction grade this time around.

We stained the wooden pillars with Minwax Special Walnut and went over them with Varathane Polyurethane Outdoor in Matte.

Next up was the actual pillar assembly.

DIY Entrance Pillars

If you’ve never had the misfortune pleasure of working from a stone-focused direction packet, let me tell you, it’s quite the adventure.

It’s like trying to put together Ikea furniture, but permanent and a lot heavier. Because the stones are glued together and they are heavy.

DIY Entrance Pillars

Naturally, the directions suck and are not at all clear.

We spent half the time trying to decipher if the stone was on top or underneath or something else entirely.

After wrestling with the ‘cutout’ for several hours, Brett went rogue and just created his own pattern from the stones we had left over. Thank goodness because we could have been there all night.

DIY Entrance Pillars

All-in-all, that first pillar took an entire day, countless curse words and a few stones flung across the yard.

In our defense, we had a wedding the night before and were running on about five hours of sleep and were probably hungry. Because hunger makes everything worse. 

After getting that first one completed on Saturday, he was able to throw together the second one while I was out running errands Sunday morning.

DIY Entrance Pillars

Practice makes perfect, I suppose!

We’re thinking about adding a solar lantern either to the top of the post or hanging from each pillar, so I am on the hunt for those – if you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear!

DIY Entrance Pillars

We also want to hang our house numbers from the second post and are on the hunt for some DIY vertical numbers we can put together.

DIY Entrance Pillars

P.s. the pillars were called ‘Aspen‘ from our local home improvement store, Menards.

All our best,


 


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10 Comments

Previous Post: « Layering Stain for a DIY Farmhouse Side Table
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Lauren says

    May 19, 2017 at 12:39 pm

    The project turned out great!! I love it and I think the lamps would be a perfect finishing touch.

    Reply
  2. Nikki says

    May 24, 2017 at 3:30 pm

    We have considered pillars to flank our driveway, but I didn’t know you could get kits. I will have to check that out. Yours are pretty!
    🙂 gwingal

    Reply
  3. Lora says

    May 25, 2017 at 9:12 am

    These are incredible! What a great curb appeal project — and I didn’t realize how close you were to the lake! How cool!

    Reply
    • North Country Nest says

      May 25, 2017 at 9:43 am

      Thank you, Lora! I love being so close to the lake. It’s a wildlife preserve so not boatable, but still a great view ?

      Reply
  4. Adrian says

    December 18, 2017 at 3:29 am

    Hello Brett and Kelly, congrats on the project.

    I realy liked the colour of the stone you guys chosed for “Aspen”
    You might want to put some metal gates to kill it and be the envy of the neighbours 😉

    Nice job.

    Reply
    • North Country Nest says

      December 19, 2017 at 6:12 am

      Thank you so much, Adrian! Metal gates are a great idea – thanks 🙂

      Reply
      • Adrian says

        December 21, 2017 at 2:41 am

        Of course, anytime !?

        Do let us know guys if you end up having metal gates as well in the future. I’d like to see how it looks!

        Reply
  5. Rohit Patel says

    April 27, 2020 at 5:01 am

    Hello, First of all, Your work is very useful for me. And Your Article information very amazing. Keep it up and Thank you very much.:)

    Reply

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We’re Brett and Kelly! A husband and wife team tackling our first complete home renovation. We love all things DIY, our two furbabes and lazy summer days out on the lake. Our mission? To share the journey of turning a house into a home.

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