This past summer one of the guys from church asked Jay to be involved with a project. Currently our creche at church involves a basic manger with plastic figures of Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus. They light up. Well, I guess somebody donated a nice new nativity set that also includes the Wise Men, an angel and a couple of animals. I only know this because Jay says that the donkey is not made to the correct proportions.

Anyway, they (some guys at church) decided it was time to retire Electric Jesus and make a new creche for the better set. That’s where Jay comes into the picture. They gave him rough dimensions and some guidelines, then he drew up a design. After it was finally agreed upon they went out and bought the materials so that Jay can start building.

This is not going to be a small Jesus Shed (as Jay refers to it). I believe the base is 4′ x 8′. Since it will be stored most of the year, it has to be able to be knocked down and put away. Jay has built that into his plans, I guess.

Currently it is taking up quite a bit of our basement. We have to put side walls on it to help keep the snow out. It has to look good, but it can’t be too light or too heavy. It has to be able to firmly sit in place when the wind and snow are blowing, but it can’t require 8 strong men to assemble and move into place. Also, it was requested of me that I stain it a dark color (yes… apparently I got roped into this project as well).

A red mahogany stain that I’ve used in the past came to mind, but I also bought some Ebony stain to see which we preferred.

The ebony stain is the majority of this sample, but you can see the red mahogany next to it. The ebony reminded me of wood that has either been burned or tarred… I couldn’t quite decide. Jay and I both preferred the red mahogany.

This past weekend we stained the majority of parts that were ready.

I sure hope that’s dark enough for the other guys. We will use a marine-grade poly so that we don’t have to worry about it being exposed to the elements.

Jay painted the base/floor a chocolate brown. The plywood was really soaking up the stain. I’m not sure who is going to poly it. I told the one guy who seems to be in charge of this project (not Jay) that I didn’t want to poly it in my basement because of the stink. Our actual shed isn’t heated so I can’t do it in there. He said that they would take care of polying it. So we’ll see how that goes.

Speaking of sheds, though, look at our Lean-To:

It has doors! There aren’t any airplanes in there, yet, but at least we can put them in there now.

I had to have Jay take the picture because it’s dark by the time I get home. I can’t wait until this is full!