Kim Iversen **Disclaimer: This post may include affiliate links, which means we receive a small commission if you buy through the link on our website (at no additional cost to you). Using our affiliate links helps support our blog, which means we can provide you more content that you love.
In early May, we had a larger project underway to raise the soil level in our herb garden. We needed to fix the grade so water would drain away from the garage and patio areas instead of toward them. In order to do the job properly we needed to move the pile of firewood, and the rack that was containing it.
We purchased the Shelter Adjustable Firewood Storage brackets years ago as we liked the idea of being able to change the size of the rack to fit our needs. It’s been moved around the yard, in and out of the garage, and modified in size through the years. And regardless of circumstances it has always served us well. As our project got under way, the rack, and accompanying pile of wood, had been sitting in its current location in a corner of our herb garden for several years.
Getting Started
Rising early Saturday morning, I quickly unloaded the pile of wood and moved it out of the way. Once the wood was removed, it was apparent that a bit of excavating would be required to unearth the wood rack. One end was completely buried in the soil, and the other end was not much better off. Using a shovel, I was able to free the rack with a little digging and prying. As soon it was free, the whole thing pretty much disintegrated. Rats!
What was supposed to be a simple lift and shift, now required us to build a whole new wood rack. Unfortunately, we had several other big projects underway which meant we needed to divide and conquer. So…building the new firewood rack was up to me. While I’m not entirely useless with power tools, this project meant I was going to need to up my game and learn to use a few new ones. I was in my happy zone!
Before construction could begin on the new firewood rack, I needed to remove all the old screws and bits of rotting wood from the brackets so I could reuse them. Most of them came out with no problem, but nothing can ever be 100% perfect. As luck would have it, one of the screws refused to come out, so I had to drill it out. My lovely Milwaukee drill made short work of the screw and I was back in action. Now I had two metal brackets ready for the new firewood rack. I just had to decide how big it needed to be.
Last fall we took down a sick choke cherry tree in our front yard, and cut it up for firewood. Most of it had been stacked in the front garden bed over the winter and needed to be moved to a more permanent home. We also had a substantial load of pine logs that had been gifted to us years ago by a work colleague. Ideally the new firewood rack would be big enough to hold a good amount of this wood, while we stored the rest in an out of the way spot in the veggie garden. With this in mind, and the size of the space where I wanted to put it, I decided the rack should be approximately 6 feet wide by 2.5 feet tall. The depth of the rack was determined by the brackets themselves.
Jumping Right In
Now I needed to find the lumber that would be turned into the new firewood rack. Fortunately, my husband is a bit of a lumber hoarder (don’t tell him I said this!), so I had a decent selection to sort through. Since lumber is amazingly expensive coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, any lumber bits that I could make use of would decrease the cost of the new firewood rack. As I searched through the stack of lumber I had three requirements.
Scrap wood requirements
- Needs to be rot resistant…so either pressure treated or cedar lumber needed to be used
- Boards need to be relatively straight to keep the rack from looking too wonky
- All the same type of wood so it would look pretty
What I found was (almost) exactly what I needed. The first items I found were two pressure treated 2x4s that were slightly curved. Not perfect, but they were good enough to get the job done. When cutting I would just have to make sure the straighter sections would be the long rails, and the curved section used for two of the uprights. Next I needed to find a couple more pieces of wood for the uprights. A bit more digging through the lumber pile and I had what I needed. Finally, armed with the proper safety equipment, which included safety goggles and gloves, it was time to get started.
Playing with Power Tools!
First up was to get a lesson on how to use the miter saw. Jakob graciously took a break from his project to provide me with a quick lesson. While we have several different types of saws, ranging from various types of hand saws, to a jigsaw, a circular saw, and even a table saw, the miter saw was the best option for this job. To start with, it’s a power saw. This means it will cut through the lumber far faster than I am able to using any of our hand saws. I know this, because I’ve used the hand saws plenty of times to prune and cut down trees.
The other power saws could have been used, but would not necessarily have provided as straight a cut. The jigsaw is designed so you can maneuver it to cut curves which makes it the best choice for cutting out patterns in wood (think of jigsaw puzzles). A circular saw is guided through a piece of wood similar to a jigsaw, but cannot cut finely detailed shapes. It is great for larger pieces of lumber such as plywood. I quickly ruled these two saws out because I wasn’t sure I could hold them steady enough to get a nice straight cut line…even though I only needed to cut 2x4s.
We also have a small table saw which we received from my brother-in-law. A table saw has a table across which you push the piece of wood to be cut. The cutting blade juts up through the middle of the table to cut the wood as you push the piece of lumber across the table. While tempted to use this saw, I quickly ruled it out as we could not locate the guides to push the wood with. This meant my fingers would be in danger if I slipped…and I like my fingers just the way they are!
This left the miter saw as the last one standing. A miter saw is a great tool for quickly making a number of straight cuts, which was exactly what I needed to do. They get their name from the cut they were designed to help with, namely a miter cut. This is the type of cut typically found around windows and doors where two pieces of trim are joined with an angled cut. Learn more about different saws and their uses on Trees.com site.
Steps to Use Miter Saw
- Measure and mark the lumber where you need to make the cut
- Line the board up on the saw table so your cut line aligns with the sawblade
- Tighten the clamps to hold the lumber while sawing
- Turn on the saw and cut through the lumber, keeping the blade running until all the way through and returned to its start position
Now that I had some sections of lumber cut, it was time to start assembling the rack. This was rather simple since I was reusing the original brackets. Leveraging our handy Bosch drill as a screwdriver, the brackets were attached in short order. To help hold things in place while I got the screws in, I used our handy clamps. Two years ago we bought a couple of Irwin Quick Grip clamps for our middle daughter. She needed them as part of her architecture toolkit for her undergrad degree, and we liked them so much we bought several for ourselves as well.
The nice thing about the Irwin Quick Grip clamps is that they can be operated using one hand. This is great when you need to use your other hand to hold the two pieces of lumber in position while trying to tighten the clamp. A few quick squeezes of the handle and the clamp is tightened. To release the clamp all you have to do is squeeze the little trigger with your finger.
Once the brackets were attached, I added a few extra screws to help keep the whole rack stable. With screws both on the sides and underneath the brackets there was virtually no torque on the structure. This was important as we didn’t want the heavy load of firewood to cause it to lean in any way.
At this point I could have decided that the firewood rack was done, but one of the issues we had with the original rack was that it had no cover and our firewood would get soaked every time it rained. This meant that when the sun came out we would have to wait a few days while the firewood dried before we could have a bonfire. Rather a bummer when you have a sudden hankering for s’mores. Or even more so when you were planning to cook chili over a bonfire…yum! So our new rack needed a roof.
We have both soft and hardwood to burn, and I wanted to keep the different types of wood separate. This meant I also needed to add some dividers. Now things were getting exciting since I had no design instructions to work from, and needed to find more rot resistant wood.
Fortunately we had just finished building some cedar outdoor furniture and had some scraps leftover that were of the right sizes. As our supply of outdoor screws was mostly used up now, I needed to learn how to use a new tool. Hooray! After another quick lesson, I exchanged the power screwdriver with a pneumatic nailer.
Nailed It
Nailing the boards into place I felt like Bruce Willis in Die Hard. This tool was fun! Simply turn on the air compressor, point the pneumatic nailer, press, and shoot. In order to make the middle braces I added 2×4 braces between the bottom rails. Then two 1×4 cedar uprights were added for each divider, and finally a cedar cross piece connecting the two uprights. With two of these in place, we had three sections for keeping the wood separated.
I also wanted a roof on the wood rack to keep the wood dry. More digging through our scrap lumber revealed two long pieces of plywood that required no cutting. This was great since I would have needed to break out the table saw for these. I cut four 2×2 brace pieces to hold the plywood sections together and air nailed them into place. A quick dig through our bucket of bits and bobs, and I had two hinges I could use to attach the lid. A hinged lid would make loading the firewood much easier.
Adding the hinges should have been an easy thing. But as it turns out this was the one piece of the project that had me scratching my head. I even pulled in my husband for consultation and we scratched our heads together for a bit. The question was, how do we place the hinge on the structure? Do we sandwich it between the upright and the lid? Do we open it up and attach part of it to the upright and the other part on top of the lid? In the end I decided to sandwich the hinge so as to protect it from the elements.
A Thing of Beauty
By dinner time I had a completed firewood rack. All it needed was a coat (or two) of stain. I was now exhausted. This was the most physical activity I had done since having foot surgery in early March, so it was time to call in reinforcements. While I rested and put my foot up (which I think resembled a sausage by this time), Jakob ran out to Menards and picked up some wood stain. Before bedtime he managed to apply stain to the entire rack. Looking closely, you can see that the rack appears to be two different colors. This is due to the two different types of lumber used. The pressure treated lumber takes the stain differently than the cedar, leading to the difference in coloring. In addition, the pressure treated lumber had been stained a few years ago for use in building our fence. So the old stain also impacted how the new stain looked on the pressure treated pieces.
As we primarily needed the stain for our fence later in the summer, and this was the only cost we incurred, the firewood rack project cost us nearly nothing. I love when that happens!
Sunday morning Jakob helped me move the finished firewood rack into place by the herb garden. We laid a few red pavers under the rack to help level and keep it from sinking into the soil like the last one. Once it was settled, I loaded it up with some of our firewood. We now had a spot for smaller bits of wood, soft pine, and hardwood.
Now for s’mores season to begin!
Tips for Next Time
- Screw the lid to the braces instead of air nailing it. It turns out that as the lid of the firewood rack has started to weather it is beginning to warp and pull away from the nails. We have since gone back and added outdoor screws to the lid.
- Check beforehand to make sure you have all your supplies on hand before beginning the project. I was extremely fortunate that the only thing needed to complete the project was the stain.
- Ideally, sketch your design before starting and think about what you need. If I had taken five minutes to think through the design before starting I would have made the uprights in the back a few inches taller than those in the front. This would allow my cover to sit at an angle and better shed rain and snow. I will ultimately need to fix this moving forward as it will reduce warping of the cover and prolong the life expectancy of the rack.
Resources
Adjustable Firewood brackets (Menards): https://www.menards.com/main/heating-cooling/fireplaces-stoves/fireplace-wood-stove-tools-accessories/firewood-racks-covers/shelter-adjustable-firewood-log-rack-bracket-kit/slrk/p-1444433708347-c-6873.htm?tid=-9008824417468145110&ipos=5
Adjustable Firewood brackets (Amazon): https://amzn.to/3xSmIyY
Miter Saw (Lowes) https://www.lowes.com/pd/Hitachi-10-in-15-Amp-Compound-Miter-Saw/1005467
Irwin Quick Grip Clamps (Lowes): https://www.lowes.com/pd/IRWIN-QUICK-GRIP-12-in-Medium-Duty-One-Handed-Bar-Clamp/1003168264
-Kim
