A Proper Woodshed

The tractor and associated implements are now being stored under one of the barn lean-to's, which is where we used to keep our firewood so we found ourselves in need of a proper woodshed. I picked a spot to build it behind the barn that was easily accessible by the truck, trailer, and tractor (all tools for moving firewood around). I first cleared out and roughly leveled the spot where the woodshed would go using the front end loader (with toothbar) on the tractor. I had some materials already on hand but I needed to get some 4x4 posts, siding and roofing. The siding and several 4x4s came from the local Habitat Reuse store. I think the siding works perfectly for this application. The roofing is corrugated metal from Lowe's. The woodshed has a 4' x 12' footprint.



I didn't really work from a plan on this (gee, can you tell?) just kind of went off what I had in mind. The front end loader sure was handy for this project. I used it to move the full bundle of siding out of the trailer and onto the ground and I used it to move all the 4x4s from the truck to the miter saw in the garage and back to project site. It also came in handy when I found that one of corners of the floor was drooping slightly. I just put the front end loader bucket under the corner, lifted it slightly and put a shim (piece of asphalt shingle) between the girder and support post and that problem was fixed.

I wanted the woodshed to have two separate bays with the idea that I could fill one side up and let that wood season and then work on filling the other side up. Ideally I'd be able to fill the entire thing up at once, but that's not how my wood processing usually works. It's more like a little bit here and a little bit there. That being the case having only a single bay would mean I'd be stacking newly split wood on top of older wood and therefore using the newer wood first - not ideal.

I decided to create a separate, smaller space in one of the bays to store bundles of bedding for the chicken coop. We also used to keep those where the tractor is now. The white bundles you see on the left are pine shavings that I get from the local Agri-supply. Pine shavings make much better bedding than the wheat straw I was using. More on that in another post. In the smaller bay I also keep my maul, gloves, and safety glasses. So I've got everything at the ready whenever I have wood to split.

Here I am with my Lead Assistant Wood Helper: