Builds

Builds

Infrastructure, one cedar plank at a time.

Homesteads run on things you make: drying racks, feeders, trellises, gates, and the hundred small fixes between them. This section documents ours the way we wish other people documented theirs – real dimensions, real costs, cut lists, tool notes, and the version that failed before the version that worked.

None of this is really about the result. It’s about not calling someone else when something breaks, not throwing out what still has use in it, and having something worth teaching instead of just owning.

Fair warning: we build for function first. If it’s pretty, that was the wood’s idea.

Cedar herb drying rack hanging over a window, loaded with bundles of drying herbs
A one-plank cedar herb drying rack, built for under $10.
Mobile wood shop cart combining a table saw, router table, and built-in drawer storage
A mobile shop table built around a table saw and a router table, with dust collection and storage rolled into one.
Wooden A-frame swing set frame standing in a field at golden hour, with a man on a ladder securing the top beam
A swing set frame going up at golden hour – built to actually hold up.

Browse every build as they publish on the Builds archive.

  • A One-Plank Cedar Herb Drying Rack (Under $10, Under an Hour)

    You can build a cedar herb drying rack from a single leftover plank in under an hour for less than $10 in hardware: rip the plank into strips on a table saw, cross-hatch half of them into a lattice, and hang it from screw-in hooks and scrap chain. Ours is drying the first herb harvest…

  • Automating Duck Care: A Smart Door, Timed Feeding, and a Pig Defense System

    You can automate most of a duck flock’s daily care with three pieces of equipment: an automatic duck coop door, a motorized feeder on a schedule, and a gravity waterer that controls the mess. Ours run themselves well enough that the ducks handle mornings without us – and the only system failure so far was…