Building a Kiosk, the Dummies Approach (2-by-4 Week 3)

NPS park kiosk

We didn't exactly perform an exhaustive search of the DMS¹ websites while finding candidates for 2-by-4 week; still we came up with enough posts for almost a month. Heaven only knows what would have happened had we performed the search a couple of years ago before they (well, actually Leaf Group) started the half-baked cleanup that's accompanied moving much of their content into niche sites. Whatever, we did manage to come up with quite a few new names of people too dumb to argue with a content editor who thought a 2-by-4 is a "2 foot by 4 foot board," which included self-appointed journalist Joanne Robitaille and her post "Plans for a Wooden Kiosk," now niched at HomeSteady.com Sad...

We found Robitaille's post in our little search because of this entry in her "things you'll need" list:

"2-foot-by-6-foot planks"

...at which time we wondered whether Joanne had envisioned a "plank" with a cross-section about the size of the standard door. Not satisfied with that faux pas, however, Robitaille continued her list with "...2-foot-by-8-foot planks [and] 6-foot-by-6-foot pressure treated posts, 4..." Wow: now those are some monster hunks of wood! Given Joanne's obvious unfamiliarity with dimensional lumber -- how would you even order something like those? much less move them? -- we were pretty certain the rest of her "instructions" would be pretty bogus. And they were.

For instance, Robitaille wants her readers to make a roof for their kiosk out of "2-foot-by-6-foot planks" -- which we assume really means 2 x 6s, rather overkill for a structure that doesn't have to support anything. Then, they're supposed to

"Cover the roofing slats with construction adhesive. This will act as a sealant and protect the wood from weathering."

Interestingly enough, her original reference says to seal the slats -- but they aren't talking about the roof deck (a word Joanne apparently didn't understand), they were talking about the fascia (ditto the not understanding thing). She also has instructions for installing a drip edge...

"Install an aluminum drip edging under the first row of shingles. Lift the row of shingles and slide the edging underneath. Apply a continuous line of roofing cement along the top of the edging, then press the shingles back down..."

...which she cribbed from instructions for adding a drip edge to an existing roof -- instead of new construction.

What a yutz: Robitaille found instructions for building a kiosk (a pretty nifty one, but intended for a back-country park!) and reworded them for her fifteen bucks. In the process, she screwed up the lumber dimensions and botched most of the instructions for the roof. No, even without her halfwit content editor Joanne would have earned that Dumbass of the Day award!

¹ "DMS" is Demand Media Studios, which has now changed its name to Leaf Group -- however, while you can't spell "dumbass" without "DMS," you can certainly spell it without "lg"...

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