How to make your own wooden compost bin (with design plans)

My other half made me a new compost bin for Christmas. Partly because he didn't like the look of the old one, partly because I'd already filled it to overflowing and needed more room. I know it's not Christmas yet, but he installed it early for me.
He made it from scratch based on some photos he found on the Internet with a few adaptations. Here's are his design plans:

You can click on the photos to see them in full size so you can see the numbers better. The lengths were largely based on the size of planks he bought.

Labour aside, it was actually pretty expensive to make because he used new landscaping timber. This has the advantage of being pressure treated, which means it should last longer. There seems to be some disagreement on the Internet about what forms of wood it is OK to make your compost bin out of. Untreated timber is definitely OK and cheaper, but might have a shorter life. Apparently old treated timber often used to contain arsenic, so should be avoided, as should any creosoted wood. We think it's OK to use modern pressure treated timber (and that's what we did), but different sources seem to disagree, partly due to the difficulty of ascertaining what the wood has been pressure treated with.
Here are some instruction on how he put the compost bin together with photos:

1. Measure the pieces of wood and mark with the correct lengths and cut angles.
2. Measure again (measure twice, cut once), then cut the pieces of wood to length making sure you cut the wood at the correct angles (some cuts need to be at 45 degrees). We used a mitre saw.
3. Screw each of the planks that make up the back of the compost bin to the piece of 2x4 that will connect it to the side. Make sure you space them correctly.
4. Screw the other side of each of the planks that make up the back of the compost bin to the piece of 2x4 that will connect it to the other side.

 5. Screw the piece of 2x4 that sits close to the front of the compost bin to the planks of wood that will make up the side. Make sure that you space the planks correctly and also leave enough wood in front of the 2x4 to be able to screw on the parallelograms of wood.
6. Do the same for the planks that will make up the other side.
7. Screw the triangle and parallelograms of wood that will hold the front slats to one of the sides (on the same side as the beam you screwed together - make sure they're the right way up).
8. Do the same to the other side.

9. Screw one side of the compost bin to the appropriate beam that you already used to screw the back together.
10. Do the same on the other side.

 

11. Move the compost bin into position, then add the slats. Do not screw them in, they're intentionally removable.

Ideally the other half would have liked to put another removable slat at the top, but he didn't order enough timber to include that. You'd also need another triangle of wood (like the one at the bottom) to hold the slat of wood in place.
We fitted our compost bin over the pile of compost I'd already made in the old plastic bin.

We removed the uncomposted material at the top first to make it easier to get the frame over it, then put it back in afterwards, plus I added some of the extra stuff I hadn't had room for before.

One of the things I like about my new wooden compost bin is it's easier to see how far the material at the bottom has composted. I'm hoping it should also be easier to get it out than it was from the old plastic bin.

The garden doesn't look its best at this time of year, but it looks a lot better with the new compost bin than it did with the old one, and more importantly, I now have room for more compost. I'll be freecycling the old compost bin later.