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Carpentry

Sep 20
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Design Your Deck With Rot Resistant Wood

By Timber Framing, Strawtron, Carpentry
White Oak Deck Wood

Our white oak balcony deck floor

It is a wise idea to incorporate rot resistant wood into your outdoor deck, balcony, or porch designs, to ensure a long-lasting, safe floor for years to come.

I’m happy to be finally decking our west balcony so that we can stand out there and enjoy the view, without worry of falling through or tipping the temporary piece of plywood we’d been using. We obtained some nice white oak boards for the occasion, as the balcony is exposed to the weather. The balcony is actually under a substantial roof, but nevertheless, with our occasional big storms, moisture and rot is a concern. We chose thick 1.5″ white oak wood for its excellent rot resistance and strength.

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Aug 25
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Rainy Sunday Natural Building Reading

By Resources, Carpentry
Canadian Timber Hewing

How to spend a rainy Sunday… when you’re not doing this…

We finally have a day of rain in the forecast for tomorrow — a 100% chance. I will definitely take it. It has been weeks and weeks of drought here. To celebrate, here are a bunch of fun building links. Perhaps you have your own rainy Sunday coming up. Check out these cool natural building and carpentry websites in your time off:

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Apr 16
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Plans for Building a Small Tool Shed

By Small Tool Shed, Carpentry
Small 8x12 Tool Shed Design

Our simple 8×12 tool shed

Before we go about proceeding with the construction of the new timber frame & straw bale house, I’m planning on building a small 8×12 tool shed. The current one ain’t cutting it. It’s way too cramped and, quite frankly, it’s not a good design. A cozy shed with enough space to actually walk in and out of is much needed, as is additional storage space for tools, building supplies, and small woodworking projects. Hence the new plans for a small shed. This will actually be the first time I use pre-made building plans to construct something, which I am actually looking forward to.

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Aug 30
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Wabi-sabi’s First Timber Frame Bent Raising

By Carpentry, Timber Framing, Hand Tools, Bent Raising, Wabi-sabi Kitchen
RIMG5053

Our freshly raised black walnut bent

In this post, I’m going to rewind back to June of this year when Wabi-sabi hoisted its first timber frame bent to vertical. (A “bent” is a cross-sectional assembly of posts and beams, part of the framing of a timber frame structure.) This particular bent was composed of two roundwood oak posts, and a hewn black walnut beam, with a span of around 18 feet. No small feat!

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Apr 06
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More House Deconstruction Adventures

By Carpentry

decon-02

I spent about four days over the past two weeks with a crew of other Dancing Rabbit and Red Earth folks working to deconstruct an old house in a nearby town. This was the most complete deconstruction experience I’ve had thus far — it was a great opportunity to start from scratch in pulling apart a house, piece by piece, revealing the innards, and scratching my head the whole time about the incredibly questionable and pretty damn ugly building decisions in this particular building. The thing sure was hideous with thoughtless additions and ugly materials, but we still got a good amount of wood and other useful materials out of it.

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Aug 19
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Building the Handmade Roundwood Bed Frame

By Carpentry

roundwood-bedframe

Last week, after being sick of sleeping on a carpet with some blankets on the floor, I finally hunkered down and made a bed frame, not without some consistent prodding from April. The idea had been to use some osage orange logs for the corner posts, and I had cut some low limbs weeks ago, but I was nervous about the prospect of using something so round and irregular to make a very square piece of furniture. But it turned out to be quite successful, despite my lack of experience with woodworking.

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May 15
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Ever Make Your Own Handmade Door?

By Carpentry

For the small mud room addition to the house, April and I are considering making our own door(s). I’m really unsatisfied with most of the commercial doors out there. They really lack character. And it’s tough to find nice reclaimed doors, too.

But trying to dig up information on how to build your own exterior doors (esepecially insulated doors) is pretty tough. So I turn to you, readers – does anyone have links to resources on building your own exterior, insulated doors?

I have a good image in my mind of the door I’d like to build, but my experience with that level of carpentry is pretty nil. (I picture a nice heavy 32″ wide, left handed, solid wood door with two or three layers of wood, or two layers with some kind of insulation between, nice black strap hinges, preferably with some heavy glass in the upper half, and preferably arched.) Guidance is welcome!

May 01
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The temporary outdoor kitchen project

By Wabi-sabi Kitchen, Carpentry

temporary kitchen - roofing

Wabi-sabi has been busy building a temporary outdoor kitchen the past several weeks. Before we really get underway on the ‘for real’ kitchen construction project, we are setting up this outdoor kitchen as a place to cook and eat while we are building. Right now, we’re eating on a sort of glorified tent platform with a simple rocket stove, a filing cabinet for food storage, and a bucket with a spigot for washing dishes. This temporary outdoor kitchen will have, most importantly, walls and a roof, which the current setup does not. It will have rainwater catchment for dish washing water, a lorena-style stove, and hopefully plenty of storage for food. It will not have seating space, however.

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