We’d like to think / hope so, as climate change, environmental damage and fossil fuel depletion make huge supply chains unviable. Most wood turning, for the European market at least, is done in China and the Far East. But how long can this continue – the transporting of almost everything we need in the West from the other side of the world? It’s too damaging to global ecology, and it involves virtual slave labour. Read more

Today I’m talking with Chris Huskins of Fanfield Farm – an Ecological Land Co-op plot – who is going to build his own house on his smallholding. He’s also trading using mutual credit, via the Open Credit Network. Read more

Ziggy of The Year of Mud shares a how-to guide for scribing wood to stone, with a project fitting a wooden timber frame on to a stone foundation. Read more

Are you keen to downsize and downshift? Chris from Loosehanger Oak shares his top tips for tiny home living in a small timber building. Read more

Ziggy Liloia of The Year of Mud in Kentucky, USA, shares his how-to guide for shou sugi ban, preserving wood using fire as practised in traditional Japanese timber building. It’s a thing of beauty! Read more

Low-impact forestry hub and much more besides, the Hilliyfield are looking for volunteers to help with their barn-building project on Dartmoor this summer. Doug King-Smith tells us more. Read more

We hear from Joe Duirwyn of Hartwyn about a fantastic free natural building learning opportunity running from June to September 2019. Read more

Wholewoods are continuing their fantastic work, offering volunteers on-site learning on a 2019 build camp to construct a roundhouse for OrganicLea. Adrian Leaman has all the details of how to get involved below. Read more

From growing the trees to selecting the right timber for the job, Andy Reynolds brings a lifetime of experience in forestry, carpentry and innovative thinking to timber for building. Here he explains how to source timber as responsibly as you can. Read more

Our woodworker friends at Gate Expectations have put together this great chart of timber durability for anyone working with wood (1 is most durable and 5 is least). Over to Rob from here. Read more

During winter, while the animals hibernate and the trees sleep, magic happens on hillsides across the land – forests are created! A brief account of the ups and downs of life for a tree planter this winter… creating a woodland on a farm in Devon. Read more

Two years ago, we blogged about Anna and Pete’s experience in obtaining planning permission for a self-built, off-grid home in the woods in Devon. Here’s the story of what they built and how they power and heat it. Read more

After reading the excellent article in Smallwoods magazine (issue 61) on formative pruning by Steve Woollard, I thought to build on that article with a perspective from a timber user. Read more

Hi, my name is Cassie. My daughter is called Bea, she’s the bigger girls in the picture there. She absolutely loves horses! I also have a son called David, who is going to be an actor; my husband is called Nigel, and our eldest son is called Ted. Read more

We’ve been contacted several times by people who ask why we’re promoting the building of timber homes and the burning of wood in wood stoves or biomass boilers. Their argument was that timber building and the production of firewood require the felling of trees Read more

This article holds some clues to the faults in timber most commonly found in Oak and Sweet Chestnut, but I have also encountered it in Southern Yellow Pine. For the novice, timber shake may sound a bit nautical or piratical, but it is a fault in growing trees Read more

Working outside and sometimes in remote situations requires a certain mindset to not only enjoy the experience, but also have an overall philosophy of self-reliance. Read more

This blog post shows how to fit a new axe handle, it could be a new store bought handle or one you made yourself – more on this soon. Read more

Anna and Pete Grugeon of the Bulworthy Project share their experiences and advice for anyone seeking to gain planning permission for an off-grid, self-build home. Read more

When I built our timber framed classroom last year, one of the concerns was how best to heat it. We are entirely reliant on woodfuel here, and a regular woodburner was going to make a big dent in our precious wood pile. Read more