written 6/8/26; updated 6/15/26

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Overview

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Supplies, Equipment, and Cost

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Owned Supplies

Optional: Spring Loaded Center Punch, Rubber Shims

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Schematics, Measurements, Wood Needed

These are the measurements I ended up with. Feel free to make it to any desired dimensions for your space

Sorry, I’m terrible at drawing perspective

Wood Used

Summary

*NOTE: So, could buy more or use just a little less in the the underbody and any place nobody will notice

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Process

Disclaimer: I am NOT a professional, just an amateur DIYer. This is chronicling how I went about completing this dreamed-up idea

Planning, Measuring, Gathering Materials

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Dry Assemble

• Since it was going to sit outside in the elements, I wanted to elevate it off the ground as well as provide airflow and draining since it’s wood after all. For the spacers, I used some random pieces of double reflective insulation that happened to be the right size

• Testing out the supports and trying to decide if I wanted them on the ground of resting on the bottom cross-pieces

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Plywood Cutting

SAFETY FIRST! It is highly recommended to use eye protection, gloves, shoes, and hearing protection when using power tools. You can even wear an apron to prevent a mess on your clothes. Also, cutting wood makes a huge mess, so plan accordingly.

Roof Panels

• Ooo, this part made me really nervous. The tricky part was trying to measure how much is needed to have a straight mansard style roof (at least I think that’s what it’s called) that I was planning for the project. After a lot of uncertainty, I just went for it.

• I decided to cut the side pieces first before the main large middle piece. You can see in the rightmost image that I was trying to calculate how much I’d need for the middle one.

This unfortunate Spotted Lanternfly nymph was in the way of my cut middle roof panel and got squished.

Miter (Angled) Cuts with a Circular Saw

• I don’t have a miter saw anymore. When I moved, I got rid of my nice compound miter saw thanks to lack of space and use. With no desire to buy a new one ($200-500!!), I found out that you can actually use a circular saw to make angled cuts!!
• Just find the release, set the angle, and voila!

Check that angled cut!! This was 45 degrees

• With boosted confidence, I went ahead and made all the cuts that I had measured out before, angled included, with the help of a speed square

• Mistake #1: Spatial stuff is not my forte. As it turns out, two 45-degree surfaces together make a square… Which is not what I was going for. What I wanted was a 45-degree surface mated with a 90-degree surface. Whoops.

This image shows how the side panels have 90-degree sides and the middle panel has 45-degree cuts.

• Let’s set that aside for a little bit

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Assembling the Base

• Lay out and orient the base as planned, ensuring the spaces are correct
• Flip it upside down, carefully, and fix the spacers again, making sure everything is oriented correctly (use a pencil to mark the wood)

• Dry-fit the rubber feet to desired orientation. I chose the long way

Note: Given the size of my structure, if I were to do it again, I’d spring for another 2-4 rubber feet. As I only have 4, if you push backwards on the structure, it tilts until it hits wood instead of being as stable as I’d like it to be

• Secure everything with clamps so they don’t move around
• Grab screws (I used #8 -1¼” wood screws for the wood which comes with a bit)
• Get the driver with drill bit and impact driver
• Mark holes, making sure to leave room for the rubber feet
• Secure the base together by first drilling pilot holes, then driving in the screw

• Secure rubber feet using appropriately sized screws (mine were #10, 1½” Truss head Wood Screws)

• Optionally, use a spring-loaded center punch to help mark the holes

Secure Supports

Time to add the roof supports. This not only holds the roof, but also adds stability to the base

• Clamp to workspace
• Decide where screws will go, and mark them
• Drill pilot holes, then drive in the screws with the impact. Don’t sink them into the wood until everything is in place. Can’t stress the pilot hole enough here.

Note: you may need to get creative with the clamp if you don’t have one long enough. I ended up drilling one hole, then inserting one screw to better hold the wood in place to drive in another before doing the rest

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Assembling the Roof

• Mistake #2: Miscalculation of roof panel sizes

Yeeaaaaah… It’s too short (at this point, I’d already secured the panels together. I didn’t write that out yet, because the sizes are wrong)

• Now that I’ve completed the project, I can now tell you that for the 26⅜” span of the completed roof, I needed 6″ side panels x2, and an 18⅜” panel for the middle. That’s a total of 30⅜” length of plywood (so, 26⅜ : 30⅜ ratio, which is an increase of 4″ compared to the span)

My Fix

• Instead of having to cut a different piece altogether, I decided to do a bit of a Frankenstein job. The cosmetics wouldn’t matter for the roof, as I already planned to cover the entire thing with a rubber waterproofing
• So, I cut an addition to the middle roofing piece, angled to attach together into a flat plane

• After mulling over how to secure any of the roof to the structure, I decided to use a technique that you never see used in construction of a roof for a good reason. Basically, I used pocket holes to secure the miter-cut panels together and used wood glue to improve adhesion. With my lack of wood working experience and skill, my attempt at this was pretty bad, but hey, it worked. See for yourself:

Assembling the Rest of the Roof

• After some dry-fitting, more cuts were made, utilizing scrap wood to help stabilize the clamped structure for trimming

It looks sooo baaaad. And it was hard to line the holes up. Again, pilot holes are 100% a must!!

• After I realized that I’d made an error in the measurements, I had to back out some of the screws, and then screwed in only 1 of the side roof sections to the structure to facilitate the addition of the rest of the roof and measurements

• Some dry-fitting, more cuts, utilized scrap wood to help stabilize the clamped structure for trimming

• To secure the big, heavy piece to the rest of the structure, I needed to get creative with how I’d stabilize it all to drill into the supports

• I used the Glue-and-Screw method along with longer screws, knowing full well that all the weight would be pressing into these 4 supports

Tip: I used a method where I would drill pilot holes, then drive a screw partly in just so the tip sticks out, which can therefore be “caught by” a pilot hole, then impacted in the rest of the way. This is helpful if you have difficulty seeing how the holes line up together. You can see this in the middle image above

• Roof complete! It ain’t pretty, but it works!

More Supports

To help further stabilize the structure, I added side and roof supports

Side Supports

• Total of 4, using 1″ x 2″ wood, but only 3 for now

Roof Support

• Dry fit, cut, glue, and screw (from bottom-up and top-down)

Camera Support

Camera Setup and Design

• For the camera, I chose a static, solar-powered one for this. Looking back, I kind of wish I’d chosen one that could be rotated remotely, but this was cheaper.

• Find the mounting plate for the camera, and decide how it should be mounted on the structure, taking the cord attachment, length, and power source into consideration
• Set up the camera first, charging it, configuring it, and iron out any storage stuff
• Dry fit everything, and determine what is needed to secure it to the structure
• At this point, I lugged the unit outside to fully test the camera placement and make the determination for further modifications

Assembling the Camera Supports

• Mistake #3: Using small 2×4 blocks, and too large of screws
• I wanted the camera to set a little further back in a small, covered alcove, if you will, so the width of a 2×4 was perfect
• Measured, cut, drilled pilot holes, marked placement, then drove in screws…

• …Only to find that the wood screws I bought were too big, the 2×4 too small and fragile:

So much for that

• H’OKAY, THEN… just plywood it is
• Measure, cut, drill, screw partway, place, screw fully

• Cut a teeny tiny bit of scrap to fill the little space between the roof and what juts out the back, then drill, and screw (glue, too, if desired)

Install Camera Mount

Note: In retrospect, I should have waited until after the staining/sealing to do this because I ended up getting stain and sealer all over the mount

• Using either any provided templates, or just a pencil, mark the holes
• Choose appropriate screws and screwdriver
• Double-check picture on camera and hand access
• Drill pilot holes, then screw in the mount

I mention “hand access” because you want to be able to remove, adjust, maintain the camera, so if you can’t easily loosen/tighten the mount attachment, then life just got more difficult

Preliminary Clean-Up

• Good time to tidy up equipment, materials, and mess
• Used the shop vac to clean off everything, including the unit
• From here on out the only equipment needed will be sanding materials, wood filler, sealant, and paint/stain stuff

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Wood Filler

• Using either a tack cloth or a damp towel, wipe any excess dust/wood particles from the unit
• Using a mixture of your hand and a putty knife, fill in holes and gaps with the wood filler. I started with the putty knife but just ended up using my fingers. Gloves could be helpful

Note: Wood filler can come in different colors. If you’re choosing to use just a clearcoat sealer, take this into consideration

• Vacuum again. Wood filler is messier than I thought it would be

Sanding

My least favorite part of woodworking

• Wait until the wood filler is dry (read the instructions, usually 2 hours)
• Sand the unit using a mixture of powered random orbital sander and sandpaper for the harder to reach places
• This will not only sand the rough areas smooth, but it will remove any pencil marks

Safety first! Use eye and respiratory protection

Stain/Paint and Sealers

Safety!! Sealers and stain are inhalation and spontaneous fire hazards. Wear appropriate protection (eye, skin, respiratory), work in well-ventilated areas (e.g. outside), and have good disposal setup ready (I always have a tray of water to submerge any stain-soaked equipment in)

Roof – Waterproof Sealer

• I decided to use Gorilla Brand Waterproof Patch + Seal because I’ve used it before on galvanized metal for an outdoor decorative item. It worked really well and still withstands sun and weather

Note: This product makes a massive mess and smells terrible. I recommend an apron, gloves, cardboard barriers, painter’s tape, protective workspace coverings, and working outside

• With everything covered well, and using a piece of cardboard, spray away!

Before and After:

• I used an entire can on the first round, so I had to buy another one for the second round the next day. That means that it was able to cure overnight.

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Stain + Spar Urethane

• As the 2nd coat of roof sealer was drying, I decided to just go ahead with the stain before the day heated up (I was underneath the deck, so there was shade)
• I had the water tray set up to put everything the stain touched to prevent any spontaneous fires (YES, they can cause fires, especially if you ball them up!!)
• Gloves were really nice not just for clean-up reasons, but to get stain where the paintbrush wouldn’t reach well. You can also use a rag to apply the stain.
• I did 2 coats (2-hour dry in between with light sanding), and made sure to get 1 coat on the bottom of the unit, too
• Remember: Stain gets darker when fully cured. I originally thought that the color was a bit light, then when I came to look the next day, it was as advertised on the can

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Attach Camera

• All that’s left to do now it to install the camera!

ALL DONE!!!

Notes

• You can put flowers on top. This was my original plan, but I needed to find a shallow bowl pot to look better on top. This has not been done yet because the one I found is over $20 and I already spent enough on this darn thing
• I used rubber shims to square up the feet
• So far delivery people have used it maybe 20% of the time which I find obnoxious. Likely, it’s because they’d rather chuck my stuff up the stairs than actually go up. The first person to use it was FedEx who put my stuff on top. *sigh* I think I might need to put up a sign? Didn’t want to make it look more tacky

1 week later – Cracking

• Went out and saw that after a week of super high heat and spontaneous powerful storms, the roof sealer was cracking and peeling!! It’s interesting to note that the shady side looks completely fine, while the side that gets all the sun is cracking. Was it applied to heavily? Did it cure properly? Definitely sun damage, though, because any video doorbell there will have its lens destroyed by sun within 1.5 years. I was super disappointed that it only made it 1 week.

• In response, I quickly bought another Waterproof Patch & Seal, except this time it was a tape. This is the stuff that’s supposed to work underwater to seal off a leak.

• Peeling off the protective plastic is a demon, but this will definitely not crack. I hope.

• It does look a little janky, but whatever. If I cared enough, I’d get another rubberized sealer and cover this with that. Perhaps I’d try the paint-on kind this time instead of the spray which is so messy and globby. Will update if I end up doing that. I’m going to see how well this product works, first.