So to start, I dug some holes.

I put a block in the hole.

All to avoid painting a gate. ;)

That looked repurposed to me like an old bed frame or something.

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

Is that an earthquake worthy foundation?

It's not.

The gravel rests in the holes, the blocks rest on the gravel, the beams rest on the blocks, the joists rest on the beams.  But the deck is fastened to the joists and the walls are fastened to the deck and the rafters are fastened to the walls and the roof is fastened to the rafters.

I had the option to stake the joists into the earth pinning them to the beams, but I kind of overlooked that step.  Conceivably, it's still possible.  The corners of the building are easily accessible and I could manage to strap the joists down to some kind of staking arrangement.  I'm gonna defer that improvement behind a bunch of others, but I did think about it.  

I think the worst thing that could happen is the whole box would shake and knock the beams over from standing on their narrow edge to their wider edge.  That would be bad, the box is impossibly heavy to lift at this point, but I think the structure would survive.  It'd be much much worse if a tree fell onto it.  That would be deadly.

Sure, building on piers is a common technique anywhere it's wet or they don't want/need a basement. Some even build that way and still put a trapdoor in the floor for a dug a root cellar or tornado shelter.

Oh, and POW housing to prevent tunneling.

Last edited by xoxoxoBruce (11/18/2020 11:15 pm)