# A stack of firewood, every log the same way round

> A wall of stacked firewood, every log turned the same way, makes the case for a stacking convention followed the same way each time without anyone re-deciding it.

August 22, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/the-way-you-stack-the-firewood-bark-down

A wall of cut log ends, packed edge to edge, filling the width of the back. Every ring pattern is
different; every log faces the viewer the same way. Pale cream against a mossy ground, row after
row, right out to the seams.

Nobody's checking that each one still goes in facing the same way. It just does.

## Why does every log go in facing the same way?

Because a stack where every face matches reads as one continuous surface, and a stack where they're
mixed reads as a jumble — which is exactly where a loose log or a damp patch gets to hide.

Consistency isn't neatness for its own sake here. It's what lets the whole wall get checked at a
glance, [the same way a gap in a row of shapes reports itself from the doorway without anyone
counting](/stories/the-shed-is-a-filing-system). One rule, followed without variation, turns
a wall of logs into something that's legible from a few steps back instead of something that has to
be inspected log by log.

## What's the actual argument behind stacking it bark-down rather than bark-up?

There are two, and they don't agree.

One side treats the bark like a roof tile: laid uppermost, it sheds rain off the stack the way an
overlapping shingle does, keeping the softer cut face underneath dry. The other side treats the
bark as a lid: laid uppermost, it traps whatever dampness gets under it against the wood instead of
letting it escape, so the stack takes longer to season. Laid bark-down, the cut face takes the
weather directly, but the wood inside is free to actually dry out. Both mechanisms are real. Nobody
in this house has ever needed to settle which one wins — the stack has simply always gone in
bark-down, and it still does.

## Who's actually confirming the convention is being followed?

No one. There's no inspection, no photograph sent to whoever taught it, no moment where the
orientation gets checked against a rule written down anywhere.

It's just the shape a hand makes with a log, without pausing to think about which way it's going —
a motion repeated often enough that questioning it would take more effort than doing it right.

## Do I need permission to draw a stack of firewood like this?

No. Generic cut logs, drawn without any woodyard's stamp or brand, belong to nobody. A specific
supplier's own printed mark on a log end would be theirs to license, but a stack drawn plainly from
imagination needs no one's sign-off.

## Does the same orientation question apply to a round, unsplit log the way it does to a split one?

Not really. A split log has two different faces — bark on the curved side, bare wood on the flat
one — so which face goes up or down is a genuine choice. An unsplit round is bark the whole way
round; there's no second face to turn, so the whole argument about which way up simply doesn't
apply to it. It only ever mattered for the half of the pile that got split, [the same way a mattress
only needs a stitched marker once there's a "which way round" to
lose](/stories/the-mattress-is-turned-and-marked).

## Does one log facing the wrong way actually matter?

Not much on its own — one turned log won't rot a stack.

What it costs is the pattern. A stack where every face matches can be read for a problem without
touching a single log; one log turned the other way breaks that read, and now the only way to know
whether there's an actual issue is to go and check by hand — exactly what the convention exists to
avoid needing to do.

## Does a packed field of log ends print well at this size?

Yes, in two flat tones rather than a photographic wood-grain gradient — the ring detail inside each
roundel needs to stay coarse and graphic, not fine enough to blur together at fabric scale.

Two inks against the garment's own dark ground is enough: one for the pale cut faces, one for the
ground between them. [Keeping the palette that short is what makes a busy, repeating pattern like
this one hold together instead of turning to
mud](/stories/why-the-palette-is-small).

## How do I get one made?

Describe the stack at [JustOG](/) — how it's packed, what colour the wood is, what's behind it.
Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to
order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

The next log goes on exactly where the last one did, cut face out, without anyone deciding it again.