Building Archives - Backwoods Home Magazine

Yurt Magic — Building an Enchanting Instant House

By Claire Wolfe Issue #76 • July/August, 2002 I awoke last night to a circle of moonlight reflected on a wall. It was so vivid I could almost see the dark-and-light patterns of the moonface in...

PVC pipe in the home, garden, farm, and workshop

By Charles Sanders Issue #94 • July/August, 2005 Perhaps one of the most important innovations in modern plumbing has been the development of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPVC), and related plastic pipe. These materials...

Build a poultry killing cone

By Allen Easterly Issue #135 • May/June, 2012 You've worked hard and spent many hours raising your pretty flock of meat chickens from eggs or chicks to nice fat fryers, roasters, or stewing birds. They've provided...

Make a Quick and Easy Tipi

By Bob Van Putten Issue #174 • November/December, 2018 The native peoples of North America were a very practical lot. Over the centuries they developed some very efficient tools. Yet, perhaps because of their appreciation of...

Gabion walls for form and function

By Joe Mooney Issue #153 • May/June, 2015 I think there has to be something ingrained in the human brain that loves things built of stone. Maybe it's our desire for strength and safety or the...

How to build a good fence for your homestead

By Charles Sanders Issue #103 • January/February, 2007 One of the basic fixtures on a homestead is fencing. Fences are used to keep animals in, or...

Build a portable woodstove for $30

By David Scott Matthews Issue #78 • November/December, 2002 I had a problem. Other men love football, baseball, basketball, or golf. I love to hunt. And the animal I love to hunt more than any other...

Build a lean-to greenhouse

By Dorothy Ainsworth Issue #154 • July/August, 2015 Just thinking about a greenhouse can stimulate the senses. In our minds' eyes, we can see the filtered light shimmering down on rows of greenery, feel the moist...

Building your chicken coop

By Jackie Clay-Atkinson Issue #139 • January/February, 2013 Here's a coop we built from pallets and scrap lumber. The goats lived in one end and the chickens lived in the other. It was free and worked...

Building Eric’s house

By Dorothy Ainsworth Issue #112 • July/August, 2009 This is the first in a series of several articles documenting the building of a stud-frame house from start to finish by an amateur owner/builder, using the pay-as-you-go...

Turning a $10,000 House into a Home — Part 1: Salvaging the Wreck

By Claire Wolfe Issue #155 • September/October, 2015 December 2012. Welcome to my house as I first saw it. The door opens onto a dirt-floored room. It's not a garage, not a storeroom, not a laundry room,...

Life-long siding with fiber cement board

By Jay Stoler Issue #117 • May/June, 2009 Fiber cement board siding is one of a number of siding materials that is replacing wood these days in new and remodeled home construction. It is essentially a...

Make adobe bricks

By Rev. J.D. Hooker Issue #110 • March/April, 2008 Last winter I got a phone call from an old friend in Arizona. One of his sons had fallen in love, gotten the girl in trouble, and...

Small engine maintenance for women

By Michelle Richards Issue #24 • November/December, 1993 How many small engines do you have on your homestead? I counted mine the other day and came up with eight. These engines help me live a simple...

Trusses — Low cost marvels to roof over most large spaces

By Martin Harris Issue #23 • September/October, 1993 When you strip away all the frills, building construction is nothing more than enclosing a volume of space to create a micro-climate for human activity. You can call...

Parge the ugly out of your concrete wall

By Bill Leonard Issue #57 • May/June, 1999 You can say a great deal in favor of cement block (or, if you prefer, concrete block) building. It's fairly fast, reasonably easy, particularly in small projects, and...