THE PAVILION PROJECT
“This ramble looks at designing a backyard pavilion — a 100‑square‑foot heritage build with a cookstove, a deck, and a whole lot of soul.”
Read time: 3 minutes
A SMALL FOOTPRINT WITH A BIG SOUL
The Pavilion Project has lived in my mind for years — a structure I’ve built and rebuilt in imagination until the picture is so clear I can almost smell the sawdust. But a dream isn’t good enough. At some point, you have to build the thing. You have to put posts in the ground, lift beams into the sky, and let the idea become real.
This isn’t a she‑shed. This isn’t a backyard accessory. This is a pavilion — heritage, bespoke, and built with the same stubborn love that keeps a Winnipeg family warm through November. Around here, it’s called “the Love Shack Project,” Knotty but wholesome. Get your mind out of the gutter — you’ve got Knotty Dave talking. This shack is for the love of home, craft, and the life being built on this land. Not the other kind of naughty. That’s a different website.
The design isn’t locked in. It might become an A‑frame. It might shift as the posts go up and the beams start talking back. I’m flexible — surprisingly flexible for an old guy. The best builds evolve as they rise. Wood has opinions. Land has opinions. Weather has opinions. You listen, you adjust, and the structure becomes what it wants to be.
What it won’t be is ordinary.
In my mind, it’s a little 100‑square‑foot building with big double doors opening onto a 100‑square‑foot deck. A pergola frames the sky. There’s spruce and elm nearby — natural shelter against wind and sun. It’s a place to sit, breathe, cook, talk, think, and live. A place built not for storage, but for “story.” A small footprint with a big soul.
And at the heart of it sits a 100‑year‑old wood cookstove I restored. It’s in my house right now, looking fantastic but not hooked up. I’ve never lit a fire in its firebox. I’m hoping one day I will — in the pavilion, where it belongs. That stove deserves a room built around it. A room where the heat means something. A room where winter can’t quite reach you.
Backyards are funny things. People let them sit empty, unused, wasted. A whole piece of land, right there, doing nothing. It’s a shame. It’s an opportunity lost. A pavilion changes that. It turns the forgotten corner of a yard into a destination — a place you go on purpose. A place that pulls you outside even when the wind has teeth.
The Pavilion Project is simple, honest, and built the Knotty Dave way: with heart, humour, and heritage in every board. It’s the kind of build that doesn’t rush. You set a post, step back, look at the sky, and let the place tell you what comes next. You cut a beam, lift it into place, and suddenly the whole thing makes sense. You light the stove for the first time and realize the space has already become what it was meant to be.
This project isn’t finished. It hasn’t even started. But it’s alive. It’s waiting. And when the time comes — when the posts go in, when the beams rise, when the stove finally burns its first fire — the Pavilion will stop being a dream and start being a story.
A story built to last.
To continue the story read HERITAGE RESTORATION
If you’d like more stories about wood, craft, and the history hidden in everyday materials, you can join my mailing list below. I send new Shop Rambles as they’re finished.
Taken just south of Winnipeg.
Written by David Flather, Red Seal cabinetmaker and founder of Knotty Dave’s Fine Woodworking — a Manitoba shop rooted in heritage restoration, storytelling, and real craft.
All photos shot by David Flather — in the shop, on the road, and in the places where craft and story meet.
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