Wood Storage Shelf Construction

Wayne and I were raised as cityfolk, so living off the grid was new to us. Of course, we had our good friend John as a mentor, but we learned a few things on our own. The first winter we had a terrible time with wet wood. We brought firewood into the cabin to dry before burning, but there was no place to store it. 

I sketched a plan and had the lumber yard in town cut all of the pieces to size before I took them to our cabin by boat. The major component is 2X4s. My first learning experience was that they aren't really that size. Processing reduces them to 1.5X3.5. Here's a link with more information. Fortunately, the different dimensions didn't ruin my plan and everything still went together fine.

First I painted the pieces with two coats before assembly. That way all I needed to do was put on a final coat to cover nail holes after completion. Because it was raining, I did most of the construction and all of the painting inside our kitchen.

The shelf is now out of the way (but still handy) in the corner of our guest room. The top shelf gives me much needed storage space. During winter, the shelf can hold about 3-5 days of wood for our Kozi woodburning stove. We rotate the wood every few days with the dry wood going to the right and damp wood from outdoors on the left. With both our outdoor wood storage float and our indoor wood storage shelf, we rarely get caught with wet wood anymore. What a relief!

Here are my plans. Click  them for a larger view with details about how to build a wood storage shelf of your own.

If you have any questions, leave a comment. For more information about our cabin experiences you can visit www.PowellRiverBooks.com, or check out Wayne's newest book, Off the Grid. -- Margy