Leviathan Hall: Little Free Library

I had a bunch of scrap in the garage and a bunch of books in the house.  Little Free Library time!  Goal: Cool little library, 100% scrap.

Some Charlie Kate painting assistance:

Face frame, roof overhangs, more paint:

Rear gable is cedar fence scrap with a couple ventilation holes

Front gable is some scaled down cedar (more fence scrap) and melted bead sun catchers my kids had made with their gran.  The sun catchers weren’t technically scrap, but still counts in my book.

Once I had the idea of the sun catcher gable, I wanted a way for it to stand out, which explains the holes in the roof.  Old solar garden lights got caulked into place.

More scrap cedar for the door.  Knob came from old bathroom cabinets from the Rocky Valley Estates.  Mostly complete here.

Solar light test:

An interlude:

Question for the reader: Why did I pick Beyond the Pond for my test book?  “Because it looks really cool” is a good answer, but that is a happy coincidence more than the real reason.

I actually found the book because I was looking for ideas for a stamp.  I wanted to be able to stamp the books that travel through my little library.  Almost like a passport stamp.

Since we live at Leviathan Hall, it naturally followed that my library would be the “Leviathan Hall Little Free Library”.  So it makes further sense that my stamp should have a leviathan feature prominently.

I spent some frustrating time monkeying around with Gimp and Inkscape trying to create my own whale.  Long story short, if I wanted a cool whale in a less-than-several-months time span, it wasn’t going to be one I created.  Thankfully, there is the internet.

After much browsing, I found my leviathan:

When I found the image, it was love at first sight.  Tracking down the linked image above brought me around to Joesph Kuefler.  I shot him a note, explained that I loved his whale and how I wanted to use it, and asked permission make the whale my official Leviathan Hall Little Free Library mascot.

The artist was gracious and gave permission to use the whale.  To honor the whale’s creator, I used his book as the very first book to go into the library.

As luck would have it, I was able to get a copy locally:

Back at Leviathan Hall:

Gabe here is securing the library to the post.  The entire roof is hinged to make it easier for me clean up or get to the solar lights, etc.  I used trunk clasps on the inside to keep the roof latched down.

The Grand Reveal:

Here is cousin Rosemary as the honorary inaugural user:

Hey, kid, where did that book come from? (click for full size version)

Wrap up:

My goal was not 100% scrap, but I came pretty close.  I had to buy concrete for the post hole, paint for the roof panels, and front door hinges and trunk clasps for the roof.  Total spent was maybe around $15 and half of that was paint.  I’m close enough to call it goal accomplished.  I used stuff that I had been carrying around for years, some of it from our time back at Gaines.

The library seems to be doing well already.  We had folks come by and leave books in it before we had actually put any books ourselves!  The very first night some neighbors came and got Beyond The Pond.  I hope it makes the rounds and maybe I will see it back in my little library again some day.