How to Build Non-Load Bearing Columns

Cut four pieces of 3/4 inch thick, also known as 1-by, hardwood lumber in your choice of widths and wood grains to the height desired for your column, using a miter saw.

Apply a thin bead of wood glue up the entire length of one narrow long edge of one of the hardwood pieces you cut. Fit a second hardwood piece overlapping the first by 3/4 inches, so that the narrow edge of the second board is flush with the outside face of the first piece.

Nail through the second piece, 3/8 inches in from the end flush with the outside face of the first piece, so that the nails go through the face of the second piece, into the edge of the first piece. Use 1 1/2 inch pin nails, from a pin nail gun, placing one every four inches.

Nail the remaining two pieces together in the same way to create two halves of the column. Apply glue along the narrow long edge of the overlapping pieces and fit the two halves of the column together to form an open ends box, 3/4 inch wider than the boards themselves. Nail the pieces together as previously described.

Cut eight pieces of 3/4-inch thick baseboard molding, 1 1/2 inches wider than the faces of the column. Cut 45-degree miters at each end of each piece with the bottom edge of the baseboard on the table of the saw and the back of the molding against the fence. Cut the right end of each piece with the saw angled right of center; cut the left ends with the saw angled left of center.

Apply glue to the back of the baseboard and the inside faces of the mitered ends. Nail the baseboard molding to the column faces, four pieces at each end of the column, with the flat, bottom edge toward the outside end of the column.