Under deck (wood shed) storage question

I built this place in '96 and have been burning since fall of '97. Wood from outside goes directly into the fire. Sometimes a day's worth is brought inside.

The area under the deck used to be sand. I added pallets and stack 2 - 4 cord under there for the winter. All that sand got tracked into the rec room. In the spring the wood dirt was easy to clean up with a lawn rake since it floated to the top after a rain.

I built a frame out from the house foundation and boxed the area in with pressure treated 2 x 6's attached to the deck posts. Then it was filled with 6" of 3/4" gravel. No more sand splashing up on the house. No more sand tracked inside. Better drainage too.

I did not like the idea of the gravel getting "contaminated" with wood dirt. I added pallets and covered them with 3/8" plywood to contain the dirt and prevent frequent foot traffic from breaking the pallets.

Today I removed everything. After 8 - 9 years, the pallets were getting rotten. I junked them. The plywood is getting a little soft, but isn't quite dead yet, so I shot it with 50% bleach, scrubbed it with the broom & rinsed the mildew off.

For the future.....

I think I am going to skip the pallet idea, put the thin plywood down and stack directly on it. Leaves get under the pallets and are hard to blow out. Mice nest under there too. The deck sheds most of the rain off. We shovel the snow off all winter long. The wood is top covered with tarps. Tarp weights are lengths of 3/8" transport chain connected with shower hooks.

Sound like a good plan?

I contemplated pavers, also thought about poured concrete. My fear is that wood in constant contact with them is going to stain them over time.

Besides wood, the tractor, leaf sucker & splitter live under there.

In the pics I posted, each rank is 20" x 5' high x 18' long. 3 ranks fit nicely, a 4th will fit and still leave a good 2' air gap to the house. The flowers never did well in the shade near those double windows. If necessary I can fit 4 more pallets (2 cord) outside those windows. It is paramount to have enough at the house once it snows. My seasoning stacks are in the hilly back yard, and the one wheel drive tractor sucks in the snow.

Several years ago we added some topsoil, peat moss & mulch in an attempt to make a flowerbed. Being the shady north side of the house, nothing grew here very well except moss. Our 9 week old Sheltie puppies loved to chew on the mulch.

Saturday we dug down to the sandy foundation backfill & removed 5 cart loads (about 1.5 yards) of stuff and spread that on a scabby area in the yard and re-seeded it. We put down a fresh layer of weed block and added 1.5 yards of 3/4 gravel.

I like the "drive through" approach to loading wood under the deck. Now I won't get my butt chewed whenever I drive over the "weeds" that used to be under the double windows, and I won't have to add mulch here ever again.