Lumber storage question

I have a question about where best to store the lumber I buy.

I've been on and off working to build woodworking skills (as time permits) over the past year. I buy wood (and tools) as I need it and usually at one of the the local borgs...plywood, pine, some cedar. I am planning on a few small projects over the next few months and want to work with different woods to expand my skills. I want to try oak, mahogany and a bit of anything else I can find available locally at a good price.

My shop is one half of a 2-car garage in South Florida....very hot and very humid and temp in the garage rises and falls quite a bit between day to night. The items I want to make are for indoor use.....side table, cradle, small boxes, toy chest, cd case, etc. I have more space to store boards in the garage, but do have some under A/C storage in a room at the back of the house. I would like to keep 50bf to 100bf in storage for easy access.

Where is the best place for me to store my boards, garage or indoors?

I work and finish projects outdoors (in the garage and out on the driveway), but finished pieces will go indoors to stay. Also, if I made an outdoor picnic table for the patio, am I correct to assume that keeping those boards outdoors is best? Any feedback is appreciated.

- Al

[snip]

Indoors, definitely. In south Florida, there's a *huge* difference in humidity between outdoors and an air-conditioned house. This will translate into substantial wood movement, and probable warpage, as wood stored in the garage dries out once made into furniture and moved indoors. Store the wood indoors, preferably for a couple of weeks before using it. Take it out to the garage to work on it, and bring it back in the house as soon as you're done with whatever you brought it out to the garage to do -- it's not going to absorb a lot of moisture in a short time, but even overnight it could absorb enough to cause you problems.

Yes, that's correct -- the storage environment should be as close as possible to the environment in which the final product will be used.

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)