By The Crazy Guy
I've got loads of wood lying around at the back of my garden. Old tree branches, pallets, an old wooden banister. You name it, I've got it, cluttering up a corner of the garden.
Recently, after a storm, three eucalyptus trees from my neighbour's garden fell onto my land. So I've got that wood too. The people who mended my broken fencing also kindly sawed the wood up into "bite-size" logs for burning in two or three years time, when the wood has fully dried out.
But what to do with it all? I decided I needed a log store.
So, over the last couple of weeks, dodging the rain and after suffering a heavy cold, it's just about finished. The best bit is, I built it with materials I already had. All I needed to buy was a plastic downspout, which cost me 6€.
Siting the store
Preferably out of sight and against a wall, in other words a lean-to. There was only one place, really, against the back wall of the pumphouse (our water source is a well sunk into the aquifer deep below the ground).
I had a lot of timber left over from my house renovation in Montejaque (Malaga), and enough roof tiles to make it look in keeping with the rooves of other buildings around here.
Getting started
First job was to select a couple of decent pallets to sit the logs on. These would ensure good air circulation and provide a firm base for the structure.
Next was to build the frame. This was a two-man job, so I called on Ollie, the 19-year-old son of friends Nick and Julia. Ollie is saving for a four month tour of the Far East before heading off to university in September 2024. In Exeter (Devon), coincidentally, where I lived as a teenager. He was already working for me that day, strimming and clearing up in the garden.
Dodging the rain
I had to stop work for a few days because it rained heavily. Then I caught a stinker of a cold, which caused me to down tools for a couple of days.
But in the past week I've worked on the almacen for several hours each day.
Having got the main structure in place I then used a roll of left-over plastic membrane for the roof, before laying the tiles on top.
Filling the store
I then set to, cutting the wood into useable sizes. I had a mixture; sticks/twigs for kindling, bits of old pallet, which burn easily, and large logs which burn slowly and give off loads of heat.
Job done
In the future I might add some side "walls" and also use a recycled persiana at the front, but that's not urgent.
© The Crazy Guy
Note: All photographs by the author
Further reading:
Casa Real: A building project in Montejaque - Part I (secretserrania.com)
Casa Real: A building project in Montejaque – Part II (secretserrania.com)
Casa Real: A building project in Montejaque – Part III (secretserrania.com)
The Building History of a 72-year-old DIY Fan (eyeonspain.com)
The Houses That Jack Built - update (eyeonspain.com)
The story of El Rincón in Ronda - the “City of Dreams” (secretserrania.com)
Tags: almacen, banister, building project, Casa Real, Casa Rita, Crazy Guy, Devon, DIY, downspout, El Loco, eucalyptus, Exeter, eye on spain, log, log store, Montejaque, Oliver, Ollie, pallet, persiana, Rincon, Ronda, secretserrania, the houses that Jack built, Villa Indiana, wood