Funky Woodshed

I wanted something relatively simple to keep my wood chipper and car summer tires out of the snow. I already have a woodshed made from milled lumber, I wanted to try something simpler.
I found this place and it appealed to me.
Plans For a Funky Woodshed

They use galvanised pipe strapping to hold the beams. I have no idea how long this will last but so what, let's give it a try.

The area was measured, cleared from humus and covered with gravel. I mixed concrete to make cone shaped pads covered with gravel. I used leftover hardware cloth to make forms so that I had flat surfaces for the posts to rest on.



The chickens had fun, we were all scratching around. The previous woodshed used 16" masonry blocks. With time they sunk into the ground and gave me all sorts of problems. Hopefully this will work better. I didn't want to bury my posts as my available wood is fir and it rots even worse than aspen.



Fir needs to be debarked quick or longhorn beetle will bore holes in it. I used a drawknife because it's all I've got, what a sticky mess!! Since then I've learned there is tool for this called a bark spud. It's on my todo list.



I made myself some weights with leftover concrete. Real handy to hold down logs for marking, cutting or whatever.



The chickens agree. A piece of vinyl flooring was used to mark around the ends of the logs for cutting.



All the cuts finished. I hesitate calling these joints since they don't really join anything.



As level and straight as I can manage. Winter will mess things up anyway.



More chicken inspection.



All ready for the next step.



To be continued...

Nice construction!  If the cement goes down below the frost line, it shouldn't move around on you.

Are the posts resting directly on the cement?  If you could sneak a bit of sill sealer foam or other moisture barrier in between the post and cement it might really extend the life of the post bottoms.  Cement tends to wick moisture up so that's why they use sill sealer foam when rim joists rest on foundations for houses.

Mike Jay wrote:Nice construction!  If the cement goes down below the frost line, it shouldn't move around on you.

Thanks Mike :)

The cement floats on the surface. I'd need to dig at least 5' deep holes to get below the frost line, way too much work! I don't mind the posts moving up and down, what I don't like is when they splay (like with my first shed). I hope that the wider cement bases will prevent this from happening.

A load of slab, mostly spruce. All the wood I used for this came from damaged trees. We don't have a lot of big trees so I leave the healthy ones alone. Even then it makes me sad every time I bring a tree down.



Fitting the slab was a puzzle. Wasn't as quick as with "real" siding but no so bad.



All done. I put some scraps on top to give me an idea of how it would look. Not exactly high-end architecture lol



I used the chainsaw to trim the slab. Watch out for nails! The plan was to cover the sides and the front with tarps. Turns out this is enough to keep most of the snow out. You can see part of the old shed on the left.



As Mike mentioned, cement will rot your posts. I used left over roofing membrane as a barrier.



Cutting lumber on my dad's beat up mill. This thing is falling apart :(



Fresh 2x4s and planks. I've heard that we can't use our own lumber to build because it isn't graded. Don't know for sure but seems it's true (All I wanted to do is build a house) What a joke! Most of the wood available from lumberyards is crap!



Getting ready for the roof. The slope on my old shed is quite low and some years there is close to 4' of snow/ice that sits there until spring. I don't plan on shoveling the snow off the roof from the new one. Steeper slope and 2x4s 12" on centers should be solid whatever the load.



The roof extends 4' behind the shed. I like this space to store rough wood and things I don't want under the rain. Although it does nothing for the snow as I would soon find out. A tarp maybe.



I didn't have time to put roofing before the snows, just had time to put some tar paper. It's surprising how little snow gets in. This was in 2017, lots of snow that year and no problems.
The netting was an experiment. I needed something to keep the chickens out of the garden. Too much work.

Here is a close-up of the pipe strapping I was talking about. It's just wrapped around the beam and nailed. Nothing else holds the beam in place other than friction. I was worried about this but it's been holding up nicely.



As you can see, 2019 has brought lots of snow.



If the moose head didn't give you a sense of scale then maybe the shovel will. Even if the roof holds up it's still a good idea to remove the snow because the weight will push the posts into the ground when Spring makes everything soft and wet.



I'm satisfied with this build, solid enough and keeps most of the snow out. I'd like to find tarps that don't use plastic as an upgrade and it would be perfect.

Nice job !

We got a good winter to test things out on this year !

Lots of frost in the ground,  able to reach areas in the woodlot usually too soft to drive on but this year is great for that.

Nice to see you using the spruce slabs. I also use them for different projects.

Cheers !