The Woodshed

We have a great woodshed built onto our house. It has a concrete floor and forms an “L”  between the porch and the garage. In the winter we can go out through the mudroom onto the porch in our slippers and get dry wood without any hassle. Talk about living it up. The only issue we have had is that any wood leftover from the year before ends up in the back of the freshly split wood unless we re-stack it all. I hate to move firewood more than I have to so I have finally come up with a solution.

Dollies

I had been down at the Tractor Supply getting feed when I saw a moving dolly advertised for $13.99. It has four pivoting wheels, measures 18 x 30 inches and has a 1000 pound capacity. The wheels alone would have cost more than $5 each and the next one closest to it cost $45. Initially, I bought one just because it looked so useful and had figured I would stack my bee hive pieces on it in the garage.

Then Jeff started splitting all the wood he has cut and piled up this year from our self thinning woodlot and it became apparent that we needed to stack a whole lot of wood very soon. His electric log splitter really speeds up this process- and it is quiet. Still, we wanted the dry wood from last year out front. Then the rolling firewood stack idea came into my head.

This is my kind of project. I love drilling and bolting things together and making something useful. I drew up a basic plan for materials and headed to Tractor supply in hopes of getting nine more moving dollys. They had only one left but told me a store about 15 miles away had eight more, so there I went. Then I stopped at the Home depot for two by fours and lag bolts, nuts and washers.

Lucky for me, we finally managed to get a few rainy, dreary days so I could work in the garage. Over the next couple of days I built  ten, pretty darn square, wooden frames  measuring four feet wide, five feet tall and sixteen inches wide to sit on the blue rolling dollies.

Then I attached the frames to the dollies with lag screws for added stability. They roll easily and seem quite sturdy plus there are no sharp edges because I recessed all the corner bolts using a paddle bit.

Next, we load them up with firewood and take them for a test drive.

Jeff filled the first one and rolled it to the side out of the way while we cleaned up the woodshed and dismantled the old racks. It rolls well and does not wobble at all. Very sturdy.

Seven and a half rolling firewood carts filled so far. This is getting exciting. And so clean out there now. This might be one of my better ideas.

-Wendy lee, writing at edgewisewoods, gardens and critters