I plan to do a 3 part Cordwood Newsletter as a blog post and see how it works. I have tried Mail Chimp and a few other services, they are all good venues but don’t seem to work for what I have to show. In these eNewsletters I usually share photos and stories that cordwood builders have sent. So I need to have something that allows for that flow…perhaps this is the venue. Only time will tell. If you have any constructive feedback, please leave it at the form at the end of this post.
To start off I received some amazing pictures from Miroslav Bentley Kubala who lives near Prague in the Czech Republic. He is building a storage building out of cordwood for his “stuff.”
The exterior of Miroslav Bentley Kubala storage building.
Cordwood Flooring
Cordwood as an art form.
As you can see Miroslav has some serious building skills.
The next cordwood project that caught my attention was the from Tim Krause of Willow, Alaska. Tim writes, “I just have been buying land, building cabins, sell it, do it again…I am a dog musher as you can tell by now… Some of those pics on your site are amazing and certainly is inspiring me for a cordwood project this summer.”
Here is an example of Tim Krause’s cordwood front on a board and batten sided cabin in Alaska.
https://www.roughcutkennels.com/
As you can see, there is some mighty fine artistry going on in these cabins.
A cordwood dog house from Tim Halverson in Ohio. A practice project before building his house! What a great idea.
Ned Thilo’s cordwood and brick masterpiece in Pennsylvania.
Here is some sage advice from Ned. “My name is Ned Thilo I’m a mason from Lancaster Pennsylvania, I built this as a prototype for my ongoing cottage project and as an example of green building for a home and garden show, I built it in a day and a half using recycled materials, and temporary mortar made from sand, lime and fire clay, I learned that cordwood is a fast and easy building system though iIbelieve it should be used as infill and not play a structural role as expansion and contraction will place fatigue on the structure (mistake I’ve changed in my cottage.) As I am a traditional mason I’ve a few suggestions to the cordwood community that I think my be beneficial: 1. for mud (mortar) use 1/3 lime 1/3 clay 1/3 sand and 10% portland. Add straw if your like. “it’s what we use for chinking old log homes”. 2. to help with shrinkage cover the wall with damp burlap “it’s what we do in repointing. 3. “tight is right” lay your pieces in thin mortar beds, no need for all that mud it’s only gonna crack. 4. avoid running joint’s…best way to deal with this is cut some of your wood into flat halves and thirds. 5. have fun! it’s easy and you can split the wood quickly to make nearly any shape or image you can imagine.”
Brent Barg from Poplar, Wisconsin built this beautiful and functional Irish Cottage Garden Shed.
I plan to do Part 2 on Adam who is building a home with his family near the shores of Lake Michigan and then Part 3 on the Kinstone Cordwood Chapel, but I thought there was enough to digest in Part 1.
I will send this out to all the people on my Cordwood eNewsletter list. If you would like to be placed on the list simply send me an email to richardflatau@gmail.com with Subscribe in the subject line.
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