We used EnRoute to create more than 200 routing files to design components for our house when we built it. Those files were used to create thousands of components, both in the construction of the structure and the finishing inside and out. For the trim we used about a hundred sheets of 30 lb Precision Board (mostly 1″ material) and many more than that of MDF. The MultiCam router was used to create all of the round window trims, wainscotting crown mouldings, the bridge sides and the corner blocks on the windows and doors throughout the house. The CNC tools allowed us to incorporate details which would have been impossible to do by hand.

The house has now been in progress for almost four years, and now at long last we are down to the tiny details. We’ve been living in the house for more than two years and when that happens the finishing details seem to take even longer than they should. In the last months a little more work was done and we took delivery of the long awaited dining room furniture. This afternoon the light was perfect as the sun shone through the giant round window to the south and I captured a good shot of the finished dining room at last.

Some projects, particularly those we do for ourselves can seem to take forever. We’ve been slowly but steadily working on finishing all of the details on the new house, which we moved into more than two years ago. Inside we have things pretty much wrapped up but on the outside there was a little more to do. The last area that needed it’s trim was the giant front window. We did the decorative concrete work, which needed to be done first, early last summer. The big projects of last year meant everything was then set aside until they were done. Last month I finally built the routing files and let the MultiCam do it’s magic. On rainy fall days I’ve had the painters busy in the shop doing the base coats and glazes between paying projects. But there haven’t been many rainy days. This week the last of the painting was at last done. It was time to get the trim into place. We brought out the scaffolding and set to work. In a couple of hours the trim was up and finished at last.

We are down to the final details on the house project. Through the construction we did over 200 routing files and created thousands of pieces. Now we are down to the last few at last.

The side wall of the house is plain with no windows and so to break up the plainness we added purloins to the lower rock section of the wall. Into these we placed routed heart panels in keeping with the theme of the exterior of the house.

On the other side of the gate we have a tower which houses all the services (water, power and telephone/data for the house and shop. The gate post on this side is a taller version of the fence corner posts. Since we wanted a heart panel on this piece it meant I had to create a new one to be routed.

I started by opening the old file of the shorter panel. I had save it with some of the right sized heart vectors just in case I needed them later. I created a rectangular vector around the plane.  This was used as the starting int for the new taller panel.

I then angled the sides of the vector to align with the sides of the old one Then I stretched it out to be 42″ tall.

I then used the outline tool to create an inside vector that formed a 2″ border.

I then rounded the corners of the panel using a 1″ radius.

Then I created a flat relief of the center portion of the panel. I would merge(highest) the different layers of hearts to this panel in later steps. I then pulled in the three different angles hearts arranging them down the center portion of the panel. These hearts would be the highest of the three levels of when we were done.

I then added enough heart vectors to fill the panel. Before I went on the the next step I merged highest the heart shapes to the original rectangular relief. Once merged, the original hearts were deleted. With those hearts out of the way the next steps were easier.

I then went down the panel selecting every second heart which I then created as the next tallest eight reliefs. These too were merged highest with the background relief.

The second heart reliefs were eliminated.

This same procedure was repeated one last time on the lowest level of heart reliefs.

-dan