Cordwood Shed Build (part 5)

Last week I was trying to get the cordwood wall finished up and the new to me window framed in.. Progress is unbelievably slow but I'm working mostly by myself. This is not exactly a one man job, cordwood requires friends.

Progess on the wall.....slow as always!

Got the window all framed in. I still need to finish caulking and put the vinyl stripping on the edges, but it's in! I used some really ugly brown caulking on part of this hanging project because I had run out of the white color caulk. It is going to have to be removed and re-caulked because it's absolutely hideous with this white vinyl.

Getting soooooo close to done with this wall. I added a green Mason jar....because I can, that's why. I mean Hell, they are called Mason jars, right? You can't go wrong with this one!!

Fortunately, if the jar cracks it won't effect the structural integrity of the wall, and if it cracks badly I can easily replace it with a piece if wood. No worries here!

My ugly construction mess. I was putting the tools away as I went, but every time I put something away I would need it again!

Getting all ready for more Mason jar masonry....

The salvage door I bought along with the window. Floor needs pouring before this piece is insalled.

Getting the jars all mortared in....

Looking pretty cool! And I am almost done with this stupid wall!!

Ya know....if I had the rest of my life to finish building this, and alot of buddies to help I might do more of this cordwood stuff. As in an entire house!

It is a TON of work and it takes forever. It is labor intensive and back breaking. But it's turned out really, really cool looking. The structural integrity of this is also good, the wall was 'earthquake tested' and flexes really well without cracking at all. Yay!!

Just about there!!

I plugged up the holes at the bottom of the loft with correctly sized 2x4 lengths. I also took the opportunity to use a few screws and secure the cordwood wall to the loft framing. There was no real need, but it makes me feel better knowing the wall is just a little bit more anchored.

I still have a couple more pieces to add, I ran out of mortar this morning. After that, I'm going to hang a 2x6 header on top of the loft joists to kind of protect the top of the wall from water, and also as a footing for the siding that is going to make up the loft area walls.

This job is going to need some chinking where my mortar mix was too wet or the pointing was bad or a piece of wood shifted with wet mortar, but I consider that to be finish work that comes later down the road.

Floor and walls first, we'll worry about sealing and insulating and all that fun stuff later. I'm not looking forward to hand pouring a cement floor but that's the next step and needs to be done soon. Earthen floors sound romantic and all, but I don't want to live in the dirt any more than I do already.

Cordwood Shed Build (part 4)

I know I haven't posted much about the shed lately. I haven't forgotten or given up on the project, but haven't had a ton of time to work on it. Here's the latest and greatest with the shed project!




The window was framed in. It looks great, but doesn't sit quite straight because the main poles are warped.






Mixing mortar. I have found that for my mixture with 20% sawdust, much more water is needed than it says on the bag. The sawdust soaks up a bunch of water.

You don't want soupy or slurry mortar when it's mixed. It should be the consistency of a snowball when you grab and pack a handful together.




I have been using dishwashing gloves. WAY better than the rubber dipped gloves, and no more concrete burns on my hands. These have been a real lifesaver!








Progress on the wall has been slow and steady. One bit at a time...

My method and mortar mixture have both improved by a lot. Using finer sawdust instead of shavings is helping a lot, and I haven't seen any more cracks in my mortar work. My pointing work is improving little by little, too.






Another day's work. Gobble thinks he's helping, but really he is just getting underfoot and starting to irritate me.


I have purchased another salvage window for the big back wall of the shed, and a solid core door for the front. They should work great for this project.

There is more lumber on site. It's all ready to be used for framing, and I'll get to that and have at least the window framed in before I pour the flooring. I don't want the window being somehow broken just sitting around and would feel more comfortable with it out of the way .

Cordwood Shed Build, part 1

A few months back, I decided I needed a hay shed. So I grabbed some warped 4x6s from the scrap lumber pile and drove them into the ground. They weren't square what with the poles warping and my lack of carpentry skill...but hey, it's just for hay! 

Then I added loft framing, and roof rafters. Here is the framing on the shed almost complete.

By this time I had started thinking,
"hey this thing is pretty cool, wonder if I could enclose it for a studio?"

Uh-oh, sounds like I've just talked myself into a lot of extra work.... and I'm STILL going to need a hay shed one of these days!

I added plywood to the loft area first.

Then I added plywood for the roof sheathing.

I used rolled roofing to cover the shed.  Then I sawed off all the ends that stuck out from the loft framing.

The ladder makes the roof looked bowed, but it is not. The ladder is pushing down on the roofing overlap.

Scrap lumber to cut down to size for the walls.

I used cinder blocks with rebar driven into them for wall foundation. I am using this Cordwood method for just two walls for now, to see if this is a good building idea or not.

Cement added to the middle of the cinder blocks and around the rebar anchors.

At this point, I realized that these walls aren't going to be square. Buy hey, no cordwood wall is ever perfectly straight!

The next step was to mortar all the cinder blocks together at the ends. I tried to be careful but my masonry skills just are NOT up to par. Anyone who tells you cordwood masonry takes no skill, is a liar!

Two and a half rods of cut down rebar, eleven cinder blocks, two and a half bags of concrete (mixed and poured by hand), and about half a bag of mortar went into two small wall foundations.


This wall is totally gonna look like a girl built it...... because guess what, she did!

When the foundation was finished, I used the extra mortar mixed in with about 20% wet sawdust and filled in a small part on the base of the smaller wall. I am still waiting on more scrap lumber ends and 6 inch cordwood rounds!

My frank opinion of this building method, so far, is not that great. This is a lot of heavy lifting, lots of mortar and concrete to mix, there's a ton of bending and stooping involved, and more time consuming than I thought imaginable. This is a LOT of work to put up a wall!!

The economic savings aren't very big, but hopefully this will insulate sufficiently so I won't have to insulate and finish the inside of the walls. If nothing else, it sure looks cool...

To be continued --