I'm building a shed to store my tools and stuff in, and I thought it'd be fun to build it in a bushcrafty style, for minimal costs. Has anyone tried this? I was thinking of building drystone walls, then wood frame on top and possibly a grass roof. The only man made materials I think I'd need would be nails, a bit of plastic sheeting and maybe some concrete for locking the top row of rocks in place. I want to build something that's water and wind tight, and comfortable enough to sleep in when I feel like it. I thought I could also put in a stove for warmth etc.
Building a bushcraft hut/shed
- Thread starter fishy1
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Why not try it in a similar way to the £4000 house Using hay as your walls and covered with lime on the exterior. Light wooden frame for your roof and bingo - a warm and dry bushcrafty shed.. 
cheers, Nag.
cheers, Nag.
I didn't mean spend that kind of cash, merely use the same technique used there. The hay bales cost him about £1 each I think. For a small project like a shed you could get away with using a frame work made of stout branches interwoven with hay, coated with lime and pained grey to look like stone. But I recon thats a lot of effort.
£50 won't get you much stone to build with though, if you are thinking of doing a dry stone dyke type of thing. Unless you know of a source you can get them from.
Nag.
You could start off with a conventional shed as the basis for your building and add the drystone etc. on the outside. I picked up my shed very cheaply through the local for sale add in a paper. Basically someone just wanted rid of a shed. Always worth a look and could save a lot of money.
Do you have access to firewood? Or trees/limbs that you can cut into firewood?
Try Cordwood Construction. Instead of stacking up rock for your walls, you stack up pieces of firewood - with a little mortar along each end to tie them together. Cutting your wood to about 16 inch lengths makes a pretty good wall for one story. And the finished wall looks a lot like stone. Round sections look like large round rocks, split sections look like more random rocks.
There are a number of books out there on building with "cordwood". Mother Earth News, Farmstead, Backwoods Home, Backwoodsman, and Harrowsmith magazines did several articles on it. Some people use it to fill in on a standard post-n-beam framework, while other use it as the complete structure and support for the roof. And the method of construction goes all the way back into the late 1800's.
Several people I know laid down several railroad ties for a 3-sided "foundation". They then started stacking up their firewood - using mortor along each edge to hold each piece of firewood in place. At the corners, they alternated stacking each layer of extra long pieces of wood - to help tie both walls together. Rough window frames were nailed together and set in place as they built the walls up. They stacked them up to 8 feet high at the front - sloping down towards the back at 6 feet high. They then put a couple 2x6's across and nailed on some roofing tin. Two days of semi-light work and they had a shed to park their car in. The only problem they have had is a slight shifting of the walls as the ground has frozen/thawed and settled. Nothing major. They now want to put two large swinging doors on the front to be able to close it up for more secure storage. And make another to use as a shop.
A Cord of firewood is a stack 8 feet long by 4 feet wide by 4 feet high. With wood cut to 16 inch lengths, that makes three stacks of wood 4 feet high by 8 feet long. So some simple calculations will give you the amount of firewood you would need for the size shop building you are interested in making.
So do a little web surfing for "cordwood construction". It might be a good option for you.
Mikey - yee ol' grumpy blacksmith out in the Hinterlands
Try Cordwood Construction. Instead of stacking up rock for your walls, you stack up pieces of firewood - with a little mortar along each end to tie them together. Cutting your wood to about 16 inch lengths makes a pretty good wall for one story. And the finished wall looks a lot like stone. Round sections look like large round rocks, split sections look like more random rocks.
There are a number of books out there on building with "cordwood". Mother Earth News, Farmstead, Backwoods Home, Backwoodsman, and Harrowsmith magazines did several articles on it. Some people use it to fill in on a standard post-n-beam framework, while other use it as the complete structure and support for the roof. And the method of construction goes all the way back into the late 1800's.
Several people I know laid down several railroad ties for a 3-sided "foundation". They then started stacking up their firewood - using mortor along each edge to hold each piece of firewood in place. At the corners, they alternated stacking each layer of extra long pieces of wood - to help tie both walls together. Rough window frames were nailed together and set in place as they built the walls up. They stacked them up to 8 feet high at the front - sloping down towards the back at 6 feet high. They then put a couple 2x6's across and nailed on some roofing tin. Two days of semi-light work and they had a shed to park their car in. The only problem they have had is a slight shifting of the walls as the ground has frozen/thawed and settled. Nothing major. They now want to put two large swinging doors on the front to be able to close it up for more secure storage. And make another to use as a shop.
A Cord of firewood is a stack 8 feet long by 4 feet wide by 4 feet high. With wood cut to 16 inch lengths, that makes three stacks of wood 4 feet high by 8 feet long. So some simple calculations will give you the amount of firewood you would need for the size shop building you are interested in making.
So do a little web surfing for "cordwood construction". It might be a good option for you.
Mikey - yee ol' grumpy blacksmith out in the Hinterlands
I just cut about a ton of hazel poles last week. They are traditionally used woven to make wall's and partition type structures (in a vernacular building context-they have multitudes of other practical uses too). They are light and relatively easy to move from source and also to work with. U could use say chestnut poles for posts into the ground and weave hazel like a huge basket around them, then render with clay/dung/sand/lime etc add rafters, cleft chestnut or oak shingles, or pallet shingles etc. Free stone building is quite a skill and U have to lead in tons of the stuff as has been pointed out. BUT the bories (cone shaped shed's built entirely from free dry stone, in the dordogne area of France) are fantastic. Mikes cordwood/stackwood method is interesting too it gives excellent insulation values
My toolshed/shelter (when teaching) in the woods is built entirely from hazel and string, not a nail in sight! 
This one went up last march and is doing fine now, though I have rejigged the tarps on it after the winter storms
It measures about 15 feet in diameter and about 12 feet high. It took me two afternoons to build on my own, the hardest part was getting two enormous plastic tarps on it
and then a third smaller one on top. There is a raised fire with a tripod in the centre of it and space enough for all kinds of junk as well as a few beds
The pictures were taken not long after completion, so are missing the vital top of it. I have a tarp (2x3m i think) over the top with ropes holding it on. When I'm planning to use it for shelter (ie with the fire lit) I pull the ropes on the top tarp out a few feet from the shelter so that it creates a cowel over the shelter, like the top hat of a flue pipe
That way the smoke escapes but the wind and rain don't get in 
You could use ntaural materials for the skin, but tarps are a lot easier!
This one went up last march and is doing fine now, though I have rejigged the tarps on it after the winter storms It measures about 15 feet in diameter and about 12 feet high. It took me two afternoons to build on my own, the hardest part was getting two enormous plastic tarps on it
and then a third smaller one on top. There is a raised fire with a tripod in the centre of it and space enough for all kinds of junk as well as a few beds
The pictures were taken not long after completion, so are missing the vital top of it. I have a tarp (2x3m i think) over the top with ropes holding it on. When I'm planning to use it for shelter (ie with the fire lit) I pull the ropes on the top tarp out a few feet from the shelter so that it creates a cowel over the shelter, like the top hat of a flue pipe
That way the smoke escapes but the wind and rain don't get in You could use ntaural materials for the skin, but tarps are a lot easier!
I built a bender and covered it with green tarps, mind you I take my tools home but I leave the kettle and hurricane lamps there.
#
Here's a book on the subject http://handbooks.btcv.org.uk/handbooks/index/book/61
And the particular section on stone choice...
http://handbooks.btcv.org.uk/handbooks/content/section/1600
I would make either a yurt or use strawbales for the walls.
making a wooden frame and then place the straw/hay bales around them, if you cut the bales in half(so that they are still as long as they where but half as long) you can just stack them as lego bricks.
then cover it with something like lime, clay or maybe even some mixture containing horse poo.
Then jou could make a wooden frame for the roof and cover it with (plastic tarpaulins and) sheer, canes or maybe even pine branches.
you can make it just rectangulair or round like those african cabins.
http://www.traveljournals.net/pictures/l/5/51869-native-ethiopian-hut-debre-zeit-ethiopia.jpg
making a wooden frame and then place the straw/hay bales around them, if you cut the bales in half(so that they are still as long as they where but half as long) you can just stack them as lego bricks.
then cover it with something like lime, clay or maybe even some mixture containing horse poo.
Then jou could make a wooden frame for the roof and cover it with (plastic tarpaulins and) sheer, canes or maybe even pine branches.
you can make it just rectangulair or round like those african cabins.
http://www.traveljournals.net/pictures/l/5/51869-native-ethiopian-hut-debre-zeit-ethiopia.jpg
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