For the past couple of years this website has been pretty much all about software or the business of writing/selling software. But as it turns out, that is not all a person should really do, so here is a totally unrelated post. My house has a approximately 5 ft wide alleyway sort of thing around the side of it, between a fence and the wall of the house, that has historically been a dumping ground for firewood, garbage, and just in general mess.
This is the chronicle of making that less bad.
The space is a bit narrow, which makes it hard to photograph, but here is an idea of the initial state:
A ton of exposed firewood, gradually rotting, bunch of leaves and some scrap wood. Not great.
First order of business was to deal with this firewood. We have a great outdoor fire space, so do actual go through it pretty quickly so the goal was to store it neatly and out of the weather, not just to get rid of it. So the first stage of the project was just to make a simple firewood storage rack.
It is a pretty simple structure, roughly 8 feet long and 4 feet tall at the tallest. For this stage, I just put a temporary roof on it to protect the wood while stage 2 was planned out.
Stage 2 was to build an attached garden shed which actually matched the motif of the house, and integrate it into the wood pile with a nice roof. I sketched the plan out in a notebook while on a road trip:
The idea is to have the top of the shed portion be two large beams, with the eaves filled with plexiglas to let some light in, the sides made of painted planks, and the door of stained cedar. Eventually I’ll also add a potting table to the left with the same roofline, but I haven’t quite gotten that far yet.
First step was to pour a concrete slab to provide a stable, level spot for the shed:
Unfortunately I don’t have all that many in-progress pictures, but as it turns out I’m not done, so what we’ve got is what we’ve got. I still have to build the doors and do the eaves, but the structure, roof, and basic painting are all done:
So that’s where things are at this stage. The weather in Atlanta has unfortunately gone pretty sour, so until it gets a bit nicer out, I’ve got a very nice pavilion. Once I can get the doors built and hung we will be in business though.