History: How Log-Stores.co.uk Came To Be
It all started following a log delivery. We used to keep them in the garage and if I or Lizzie, my wife, ever needed to do anything in there, it was a struggle having to work around them.
So, the decision was made. I was going to build a log store.
I found a good place to site it. We had a flower bed just along side the garage that was no longer needed and was just the right size (900 mm x 2100 mm).
The first job was to get some ideas of how a log store should look. I figured that I'd build something resembling a garden shed with some large ventilation holes drilled around the top, just under the roof line. A few hours of Internet searching later I discovered that log stores weren't like that at all. A log store had to be built like this:
- The floor has to be raised above ground level and should be ventilated to allow air to circulate.
- The sides and back should be adequately ventilated too for the same reason.
- A door was unnecessary as long as the front of the log store faced away form the prevailing wind.
- The roof had to be water-proof.
I noticed that some of the designs I came across when doing my Internet search, in particular the cheaper ones, looked rather poorly built and I coundn't see them lasting more than a few years. I'm 52 now and, although I thoroughly love working with wood or carrying out any DIY job for that matter, if I was going to build a log store, it was going to last me for the rest of my life.
Now you may well accuse me of being guilty of over-engineering. I've been accused of that before. But the way I look at any project is this: The Victorian engineers who designed and built such master-pieces as St Pancras station in London were accused of over-engineering by their successors. Compare the Victorian's efforts to those of their accuser's, the 1960s and 70s architects, and I know which of those two categories I'd prefer my creations to fall into.
Having made my mind up roughly how the finished article was going to look. I ordered some materials and, when they arrived, I took a week off and set about laying some paving slabs in the old, unwanted flower bed and building a log store.
I made seven modules: three upright frames, two floor frames and two roof frames. Once these were fastened together, it was just a question of screwing the panels to the outside and roof and fastening the floor rails down. I fixed the side and back panels diagonally because a) they look nice, b) any rain water falling on them will trickle downward and c) they offer tremendous strength.
The whole thing was constructed from Tanalised® softwood.
When I first built this one I used shiplap timber to panel the roof. When it rained, a few days after I'd completed it, I noticed that water was seeping through the nail-holes and joints. I had two options: 1) I could increase the roof pitch so that the water would run off it more easily or 2) cover the roof with shed felt. I elected to go with the latter. The first would have demanded taking the whole thing apart and starting, more or less, from scratch and, in my opinion at least, would have looked horrible. To fit the roof felt, I first removed the facias and then removed and reversed the shiplap panels so that the felt would have a flat surface to lay on. I then simply folded the felt and clout-head nailed it to the front, back and sides. I then re-fitted the facia boards thus, hiding the excess felt and nail heads.
This is what the finished article looks like:
My First Attempt So, job done and we could move around in the garage once more (well, not quite but that's another story entirely).
However, this story doesn't end there.
Over the following few days people passing by in the street or calling commented to me how much they liked it. Now, as I'm sure you'll agree, when you've done a job that you're proud of and people say that they like it too, it's just the icing on the cake and, in this case, made working outside in the wet and cold all worthwhile. One of these people was a dear old friend of mine, Julian. Julian owns Focus Fireplaces and came to see Lizzie one day whilst she was working from home (Lizzie manages Julian's retail showroom). He said that he liked my log store too. So, right there and then it was agreed that I'd design a flat-pack version of my log store and he'd look after the maufacturing of them.
A week or so later, the prototype was born:
And the rest, as they say, is history.
