LUMBER SYSTEM

NOTE--I had said I would try to publish weekly and here it is a month has gone by since my last posting. Can you forgive me? If I have an excuse, I don't know what it is. 😓

In this not-so-simple simple life there are things that we learn along the way that we may not have practiced too well beforehand. One of those things fits into the idea of systems which I menttioned in the last issue.

Most of us involved in this life called homesteading have been forced to develop a DIY mentality (if that was not already the case). We have to learn many aspects of the small farm, animal husbandry, machine repair and maintenance, growing and preserving food, woodworking and the like.

Learning to have the systems in place as mentioned last time is an enormous time-saver.

With the cost of lumber sky-rocketing the past few years, it is no longer wise to simply chuck the ends of cut-offs into the fire. Of course, we do that with anything less than a foot long; but anything longer than that can be saved for a future project.

The problem comes in "how to save and store all those pieces." Regardless of the size of your workshop--corner of the garage or a separate building--leftover pieces of wood begin to take up valuable space.

I've seen rolling carts with separate bins for these pieces, but that seemed to be mainly for fine woodworking. Regardless, it just wouldn't be practical for me with so much stock lumber.

I needed a wood rack, which I built inside the lean-to on the back of the deer-shack-turned-shop. You probably have to enlarge the photo to see it, but the end of each piece has a number on it that I put with a Sharpie.

That number is the approximate size in length of the board. I stacked them according to width, ie, the 1x4s on top of each other, then the 1x6s, 1x8s, etc.

The number helps save the time of inspecting each piece to see if it is long enough for the need of the moment. For instance, this morning I needed two pieces of 1x4 at least 28 inches long. I went to this stack, found a piece marked 29 and a piece marked 32. I removed them from the stack and made the cuts necessary for the project. Easy-peasy.

If this one idea is a help to you, please let me know in the comments. Also, if you have a different system, everyone who reads this would like to know, so leave a comment about your system.

Thanks.

Until next time, do your work, enjoy your life, play hard and love the one you are with.