Fieldstone Garden Shed

[hunterridgefarm]

Excellent job, I love it.

I know what you are talking about when it comes to rock work and things interfering. I have been working on a rock wall in front of our house for 2 years now. Something is always pushing the project back.

 

[frogfish]

Great job! I've had a project like this in mind for several years now, never been able to start. Maybe this is the inspiration I need.

 

[ncnurseryman]

Wow, that looks great. Really nice stone work.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you for sharing your project and congratulations on doing such a great job of building it!!!! Really nice.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you for sharing your project and congratulations on doing such a great job of building it!!!! Really nice.

Eddie

 

[deezler]

Pretty cool, and good story, thanks for sharing. How do you get up to the second level? And why did you need it? Something about bears and bees?

 

[forgeblast]

I did extend the eves out to help keep water off the stone. I was looking at the spring house near my friends house and it had a huge over hang (eve) so I figured it was up for over 100 years so I would follow what they did. I was worrying about the freeze and thaw on the stone, I figured the more water I can keep off the stone the longer it would last.
The sheds second floor I want to make into a bee house. This is where I can have my hives inside and jump the electric fence over to the shed so no bears can climb up and destroy them again. I lost three hives this year due to the bear, but the good news is that bear season is long this year. I have a chance during archery and rifle and the bear season itself.
Using a warre hive system you only mess with the bees twice a year. Once in the spring to add hive boxes to the bottom, and once after the first frost to take honey (leaving them enough to get through the winter. It is a very easy way to handle bees.
The second floor holds all my hives and equipment. I have my garden tools in the bottom, along with some chemicals and fert in the blue barrels.
To get to the second floor I have an opening framed into the floor, its covered by an old oak door we found in the barn, and is hinged like a trap door on a tree house. I will be building the ladder next year I can get into it now with my 6' folding ladder.
Eventually Ill get better windows in the sides but for right now it works.
I did want to put a pully or hoist so that we can clean deer there and not in my barn which is finally clean.

 

[charlz]

It is hard to tell from the photos but how are the walls actually constructed? Are the stones as thick as the walls and you just stacked them together with mortar or is there a mortar/rubble core or? I have been wanting to build my wife a stone garden shed but all the stone around here is about as thick as the stuff in that stacked wall you made.

I love the look of real stone and you did a great job!

 

[dstig1]

Very nice work. How did you learn this? Did you already know masonry work, use a book/internet to guide you, advice from someone experienced or just wing it?

 

[forgeblast]

The walls are all stone and mortar (solid). So when your looking at the stones, some stones are real thick some are thin, its just like building a stone wall just with mortar. I put some of the largest thickest ones on the bottom to give me a good base to start with.

Then before I went up(stacked another stone on top) I filled the gaps with moartar and stones I had cut off or broken stones. I would just start on one side and try to go up 6'' to a 1' all they way around.
The thickness of the walls is about 1' to 14'' thick near the bottom and 8'' near the top. (The big stone near the door is about 4'' thick and 2' 1/2 to 3' long. Its heavy")
If I were to do it again, I would not cut a single stone and just fit them together.

I had never done any stone work. The first time I built a wall was when we moved into our house and I was cleaning the yard of rocks. I had a pile and figured I could stack a 3' high by 3' wide section of wall to see if I could. From there I built a lot of walls. My first mortar project was a fire ring, from there I did the logical leap and built a shed (lol).
I learn best though by doing so....
I learned by mixing up mortar (type s premix) (there was a bad day when someone mixed in a bag of black velvet and I didnt notice and could not figure out why I could not get a stone to stick).
and stacking one stone on another.
I went through a lot of the harbor freight gloves because I burnt my hands bad one summer with the lime in the mortar.
There were days when I actually lost height building because I had to take down what I built the time before. But that sort of thing doesnt bother me, I went in to it thinking I was going to learn how to mortar and failing at spots was part of the learning process.
I used an old paint brush to brush the mortar joints when I was done, but I need to go back and acid scrub them to clean them up.

Books that I used.
The stonebuilder Primer by Charles Long (used this book for its illustrations on how to frame out a stone building)
Stonework techniques and projects by Charles McRaven (book tells/shows how to make just about anything out of stone)
a great idea book is Patterns from the Golden Age of Rustic Design by Albert H Good(it has pictures and drawing from the CCC Parks and Rec structures of the 1930s). I have to say this is a book I just love. I have about 20 pages marked and the 200 pages of designs and pictures are just awesome. If your looking to build anything "rustic" this is the Inspiration book you want. It covers all different parts of the country any where the civilan conservation core built things.
I also read a lot about cordwood construction but decided to use stone.

I want to thank you all for the great questions and comments it really means a lot to me. If there are any questions I didnt answer just ask and If you need a picture of something I would be more then
happy to run out and take one.