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Now that is one nice rustic wood shed Very nice. I love this site and seeing posts like yours is one of the reasons I do. Your gonna enjoy your building for years. I enjoy just seeing pics of it.
If THAT were my shed, I'd not even think about siding it. Disco, your shed is awesome!! (just not full yet, so get off your arse, and get to work.) :coolgrin:
I'm planning to use rough-sawn cedar or hemlock, something rustic. Might even use slabwood. We get a lot of snow w/ blowing and drifiting here, and without siding I'm afraid the wood will get wet a lot more often from melting snow. The wood might be in there 10 or more years before I burn it - it's only a seasonal house right now, and with the new Fireview we don't burn more than a face cord per year.
As good as this shed looks now . . . trust me on this . . . it will look even better once filled with firewood.
As for siding . . . I like your idea of using rough cut wood or slabs . . . it would look rustic . . . and do the job . . . namely being keeping the snow out of the shed. Again, nice job.
Good looking shed...I'll be doing something similar next month. We sided our 2 story barn with rough cut hemlock....has aged well. I applied one coat of stain/sealer after a year of drying out and it still looks good 15+ years later. Wood has maintained a brown color(from the stain) as opposed to the natural greying...either looks good to me.
That right there is WAY cool!
To paraphrase Tom Hanks in CastAway, "I have made FIRE....WOOD."
Siding is a good idea too, do the side with prevailing winds first. Just in case you can't get it all done before the snows fly.
We're waiting for more pics. I'll be the first to do this, although probably not the first to get it done,..... here's a pic of a full shed (mostly).
It's going to have to survive the coming winter naked, as I'm leaving tomorrow and probably won't do much when I'm back in the winter. But I do hope to have it looking like yours come next summer.
I'm still looking at the pictures in detail. Thanks again. You've re-sparked my interest in my own project.
Where did you find the log balsam fir load tables?
I assume the posts under each beams are not the same height, but were adjusted to compensate for the different diameters of the log beam above it, so the finished beam was level?
Did you use anything between the bottom of each post and the top of the cement footing?
I'm thinking of peelilng my balsam fir logs this fall and covering them for the winter, so I can build in the spring.
You must be happy with your wood under the shed roof. That's the place for it - out of the weather but in the wind.
I did the same, peeled and treated most of the logs last summer, then tarped them. I did lose a chunk of a beam due to a leak in the tarp and some busy ants.
You are correct, the posts were cut to both compensate for ground slope and for the beam taper. However, the beams themselves were not perfectly straight and this led to some headaches. The phrase "good enough for government work" was uttered more than once! I don't have anything between the post and concrete, perhaps some some of water barrier would have been a good idea but I didn't think of anything.
Here are the American Wood Council's interactive span tables for joists and rafters: http://www.awc.org/calculators/span/calc/timbercalcstyle.asp http://www.awc.org/calculators/span/reversecalc/reversecalc.asp
Choose "Eastern Hemlock and Balsam Fir". I don't know what grade to call round timbers, I'd assume a low one. These tables only list standard 2x dimensional lumber sizes: 2x4 (1.5"x3.5"), 2x6 (1.5"x5.5"), etc. I figured out the conversion to round once, although I forget the details I have written down that the round equivalents of a 2x4, 2x6, 2x8, 2x10, and 2x12 are 3.2", 4.3", 5.3", 6.2", and 7.0" diameters, respectively.
I never found a really good span table for beams, I just used the biggest ones I had, which ran from 6-8" in diameter.