Its finally time to start working on the pillars! This is one of the final steps - Im almost done.
Ive stood the house back up - here are some shots with the face in its final place...
I took the 4 oak square stocks and laid out my cut pattern. I plan to make a full tennon type joint in the top and bottom of the house, so that if someone were to ever try to move the unit by the pillars, there wont be any chance that they will pull off. Because of the way that I am making these, they will never pull away or be able to be removed! Here is my initial layout... 
At this point, I gave the majority of the pillars a rounded edge with the router on all sides. All except the top and bottom 2-3 inches - this will give a relief effect and also be nice to little hands...
Next, I cut each pillar to length, and headed to the table saw. I gave each side a 1/4" relief cut to start my 4 sided tennon.
Next, its over to the band saw, and the finishing cuts for the full tennon ends. Each end of each pillar gets 8 cuts - 32 cuts total - so naturally I set up some blocking and jigs to help me with this. Whenever I get several cuts or patterns, I always take time to set up some type of blocking or jigs to make the cuts go quicker. The other advantage is that it gives you more accuracy.
Here are the ends of the pillars...
Now back to the house. I laid out some guides and clamped them in place. A few months ago I bought a Proxxon micro-router that takes a 1/4" shank bit for a different project. Its the perfect tool for removing the wood that will receive the full tennon! I transfered my layout from the top to the bottom. This took me a little while, since I need to ensure that the pillars will be plumb on all sides when I put them in - a little tricky with not many reference points. In the following picture, I am starting to route out the mortise holes...
The next step will be to install the pillars! However, Im out of time for today. Ill have to come back for one more day to install the pillars and wrap this project up.
BONUS PICS!!!
Sure - why not?!? Ive gotten alot of requests for the next pictures, so here goes:
Ive set the pillars TEMPORARILY in place to see what itll look like -
AWESOME! :)
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