I am working over the now enclosed breezeway. It is nearly completely sealed from the weather and has significant insulation. I expect it to make a pleasant work environment when I get done working on it. Akin to spending 100 hours setting up a computer to save yourself 5 hours of bookkeeping.
Since our cabin is rather small, our woodstove is necessarily small as well. Firewood requires another split or two before it can come in to heat the house. Thus every day we heat with wood, that is to say every day this winter, I spend 15 minutes or so splitting logs and kindling. That process had to be designed into my workshop / storage space.
The windows also played a major role in design. I wanted a bench that took advantage of the light and view they offer. Yet two 8-foot benches make so much sense with material utilization of 8-foot plywood sheets and 8-foot studs. Standing my splitting log up in a 2-foot gap between 8-foot workbenches resolved that perfectly.
Of course that puts the lovely windows at risk when the wood splits start flying. That’s where the beauty of the splitting station cover comes in, playing double duty as a window shield.
It is good I hadn’t thought of a place to store my hatchet and hand-splitting maul before now. They just sit on the catching platform waiting their turn at wood whacking.
It will be interesting to see what I end up using the space on either side of the log. I envision tool shelves at this point.
Whatever ends up happening below, the spliting station itself is absolutely wonderful.
Darn near everything I split stays right up at stand-up height. My stooping, bending over, and picking up, has been cut by 95% or more. I have never seen anything like it, and am feeling particularly clever with the way it worked out.
As usual, my scrap piles did much of the design work. I needed four pieces of substantial lumber at least 2-feet long and around 10 inches tall. I had exactly four scraps from our wall that were that big.
I have some milling to do before it is trimmed-in finished, but I achieved functionality today. The rest is icing on the cake.
Oh, and speaking of heat, the top right picture shows our good, old kerosene heather standing in the new workspace. With outside temperatures reaching a high of 20 today, it got the work room up to 70 before I turned it off in the late afternoon.
Lovely
