Enter the woodshed

I feel like I reference stuff in the past an awful lot. Oh well, here we go again. You might remember some years ago (2013, blimy!) when I built the Mk2 wood rack or the second Mk2 wood rack.

Both of those are still in place at camp and doing their job well. The old Mk1 wood rack at the house got replaced with a Mk2 and that has also worked out well. However at home we store a lot more wood than at camp, I've had as much as 5 cords (640 cubic feet) of wood at one time. For the most part that wood has lived under various tarps and pieces of plywood or whatnot. That has worked with varying degrees of success but we really needed a woodshed.

I knew this was going to be a big job so I kept putting it off, finally I decided it was time.

A trip to Home Depot resulted in $400 of wood, screws, roofing and etcetera. Here we've got the 2 uprights, they're actually stacked in the picture. The one on top is 6 feet tall, the other is 8 which gives just over a 3:12 pitch to the roof.

Ben and his wife Rebecca came over and helped stand everything up, it was great to have a bunch of hands for that job. Here I've just test fit the first rafter.

Now with all the rafters on.

If you're a real carpenter you'll notice that I didn't think to put purlins on before putting on the roofing. I'm debating if I should go back and do it. I don't want to because it's a hassle since the whole roof has to come back off. It might be a little easier with the shed filled, I'll be able to stand on the firewood...

Starting on the "walls". I'm not going to fill in the walls, the shed doesn't need it and the open walls will hopefully help the firewood to dry.

First attempt at loading. We've debated a lot and which way the wood should go in. The open side of the shed faces north so this is an east/west loading. I've since decided that I prefer the wood to go north/south. This "short way" loading allows me to put dry wood on once side of the shed and wet on the other.

The shed is 7x12, the roof is actually 8 feet so we get a 6" overhang front and back to keep things dry. The front is 8 feet tall, the rear is 6 so average that to 7. So far I've loaded it 6 feet high, 7*12*6=504 or just about 4 cords of wood.

I bought enough wood to put a front on it too. If I fill in the left side I can load in that extra space at the top, as it is the wood wants to spill out the front if I load too high. I suppose I could use some straps to hold the front, that might be worth an experiment...