Friday, January 27, 2012

Armchair Construction

Today we rotated our firewood stacks.  The driest wood moved from outside the door to inside the yurt, the next driest moved from the greenhouse to outside the door, and the wettest stuff moved from a tarp-covered pile to the greenhouse.  This is a dance we seem to do often.  An average piece of firewood has been stacked four times before it makes it to the wood stove.

Realizing the inefficiency of this system, Christy and I started talking about the wood shed we want to build at MFW.  The idea is to have somewhere to store three cords of wood, separated into three piles, with a covered chopping area.  That way we can be curing two season's worth of wood at a time, and never have to worry about chopping enough wood before the rain comes.  It's basically going to make life better.

Once I had a basic idea of how I want to design it, I built it in SketchUp.  If you're not familiar with SketchUp, it's a free program from google which lets you build 3D models. It's pretty easy to use, and has really helped us out in the early stages of designing projects.  Sometimes an idea can look great in your mind, but in actuality be either ugly, unnecessary or physically impossible.  Making a little model to look at can help you rethink your design, spot trouble areas or stop you from starting something unnecessary.  And it's free!  I recommend giving it a shot.

Here's what our wood shed looks like at this step:


We've also used the program to design our garden shed, brainstorm our home plans and configure the shop:











Speaking of the shop, we've been kicking some serious ass in there.  Almost all of our tools are set up, the welder is functioning, and things are getting organized!  There are only a couple of bench tops, the table saw and a fold-down welding table left to finish.  Once it's all done we'll have a full post on it (and maybe a video)...
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4 comments:

  1. Christy here;

    When we first discovered Sketch Up, we spent several days each on a computer trying to design our future perfect house. John picked it up perfectly, right way, and rocked it. I made 8 different designs while he perfected one, and they were all crazy. there was probably not a right angle in a single one. I would get frustrated because it would be impossible to build and start over. One of them looked like a space ship landed inside a house. Anyway, just saying that John makes Sketch Up look easy. It really is such fun though and if you haven't played around with it, you should.

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  2. I've tried Sketch Up and was thoroughly demoralized by my ineptitude with it. Still, I think if you're handy with picking up apps, you'd like it and it would be really useful.

    I like your woodshed design a lot, John. Are each of those bays big enough to hold a cord of wood each?

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  3. Thanks Paula! SketchUp takes a bit of trial and error to get down, but with enough rainy days and stubbornness, anyone can get it down. As far as the woodshed, each bay is 4X4X8 (with a slight slope for the shed roof), which are the dimensions of one cord. It doesn't leave any wiggle room, though.

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  4. ..well I think it is efficient..you generate heat when moving the wood which is very effecient!..not to mention the sketchup efficiencies! Great looking shop ( as per usual) and the woodshed is going to be a woodstoves wet dream!..in a non-preverted, non-sexual way..the woodstove is going to appreciate the dry wood is all. sketchup is a super little program..but I had to abandon it due to my designs starting simple and ending up as a version of the space shuttle.

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