After all the prep and painting, I’m almost ready to make the lattice panels. Well, at least one panel. But first I need to do a 2nd coat of exterior paint on the wood and now that the concrete patch has dried, I prime that and paint that with exterior paint.

My spouse suggested I do a test run of the frame before cutting up my expensive cedar wood so I buy a few 2x2s at Home Depot to play with. I measure out 1 of the gaps and then cut the wood. I decide to go with a butt joint because that seemed like the easiest way to start. I make the panel and it fits nicely under the porch.

Since that goes well, I’m feeling confident and I’m not in love with the butt joint. The other lattice panels on the house all have miter joints and it feels like a cop-out to go with a butt joint, so I then practice a few miter joints using a handsaw and miter box. When I get the miter joint down, I move to cutting the cedar molding and making the first frame.

It goes pretty quickly cutting and screwing together the frame but the next part gets tricky. To cut the lattice, I measure out the dimensions and cut with a circular saw. The problem is that the lattice molding has grooves to accept the lattice, so the size of the frame doesn’t quite map to the the size of the lattice panel. I learn that the hard after cutting the lattice and it’s nowhere close to fitting in the frame. I then spend a ton of time trying to whittle the lattice down to fit. I try using a planer and a Sawzall, but I can’t get a good straight cut. The other problem is that in the frame, the lattice expands and compresses so it’s hard to get a sense of the true size of the panel. After much futzing around I finally get the lattice sized to fit inside the frame and I lock it in by screwing the final top to the frame down.

Once I get the frame assembled, I’m happy to see it fit snugly under the porch. But sadly all that work ate up the rest of the weekend so I put the temporary fencing back on and am only able to get one panel done.