After my wife and I moved into our first house last year, we realized that we created what seemed like a lot of food waste for two people. So we decided to start composting as a means to get rid of some of that waste.

After looking online for bins I could buy, I decided that building my own might be a better way to go. I had, after all, just started to get interested in rough carpentry and wood working. This coupled with me being a designer with a penchant for CG as well as someone who is meticulous in nature pointed towards DIY being the best solution.

Since I knew so little about composting, I started by reading as much as I could and determined that a good bin should have easy access to allow for the turning of compost, should be large, and should have adequate airflow. With those criteria in mind, I started to look at plans that others had created. This eventually led me to these plans by Lowe’s.

http://www.lowescreativeideas.com/idea-library/projects/Building-a-Compost-Bin-0109.aspx

This bin seemed perfect. It was a three stage system so once the left side got full, the compost could be moved to the right side for finishing. Although the bin seemed perfect, I wanted to change the dimensions of it to better fit the area in my yard that it was going to live. I also decided to build it one section at a time.

After redrawing the plans and building it, I’m happy to say, it came out great. When planning the bin, I didn’t anticipate just how far down things would compost. It’s been almost a year now and I haven’t even needed to build the second (or third) bin yet. After everything bakes down, the bin is never more than 1/4 full. I would like to use the finished compost soon though so I am going to need to build a second bin for finishing at some point in the near future.

Click here to view the plans for this project

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