Framed from the Forest

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Student operates Wood-Mizer to create 2x4s for the new shed.

What do you do when you need a storage shed? Most jump in the car and head over to Lowe’s or Home Depot to purchase a prefabricated shed and have it delivered. At MSA, we think differently. When the Land Management class needed an enclosed space to store tools, they came up with a plan of their own. This plan began with a walk in the woods.

Students located a recently stormed-downed hickory tree. With the assistance of the operations team, they transported the tree to the upper meadow and ran it through the school’s portable Wood-Mizer. Afterwards, they placed the slabs in the recently renovated red barn on the farm to dry.

The students then handed the project over to a Land Management-inspired Winter Week of Wisdom and Wonder class to complete the next steps in the process. With the hickory properly dried, students selected slabs of wood and carefully cut them into 4x6s and 2x4s to use for the framing construction of the shed. Afterwards, they cut slabs for the siding and located some extra cedar shingles on campus for the roof.

Students then drafted a design for a single-slope roof shed that met the storage needs and fit perfectly in the desired location. With the materials in hand and the design planned out, they got to work framing. For some of the students, this was a new experience; for others, who have taken Design/Build, the basics of framing walls and a roof system was familiar territory.

Working together, students carefully framed the new shed. The only construction material not from MSA’s campus are the wood screws. Framed from the forest and designed and built by students—doesn’t get much better than that.