An Autumn Shed Build, A Spring Staining

Oh the joys of home ownership.  A to-do list as long as my right leg, which you know is pretty long. Home repairs, home upgrades, property preservation: all things wonderful.  It's not that I don't like doing these things, because I really do, I genuinely enjoy working on our little home and making it ours.  It's just overwhelming sometimes when I allow my mind to think of everything on my to-do list all at once.  Too many things, all at once, melt-down.  I need to maintain the advice my own twink brother often offers, 'One day at a time.'  

The good news is that once I set my mind to something I can usually focus all of my energies to it. One such occasion came last latesummer/fall when I tasked myself with building a garden shed for myself and the missus.  The house came it an old rickety metal shed with a rotting roof.  The house also came with a dilapidated garage.  So we needed a PROPER place to store our lawn and garden implements through the notoriously long and cold Ohio winter.  With this in mind, I set out to build our very own 16x12 'Saltbox' design garden shed.

No previous construction experience?  NO PROBLEM.  At least that's the perspective granted by hindsight.  In reality there were a lot of head-scratching moments that required a lot of Milliren-grade research and pondering.  But somehow, someway, I managed to keep the ball rolling and built the shed, pictured below, in a little over a month... working primarily on the evening and weekends.  I was working off of bought plans that I ended up ignoring halfway through because their lack of detail (NOT Milliren-grade) was utterly frustrating.  Some Pics:

Starting with block on compacted gravel, laying out the floor. First layer - 4x4 skids.

  

2X6 Pressure Treated floor joists, 12" On center spacing.

 

3/4" Pressure Treated plywood floor sheathing.

That's a pretty dance floor!

Laying out the front wall.

Front wall.

  

Rear wall plus door and window openings.

Sidewall time.

Now we have a wood box with no roof!

Handmade roof trusses all nailed up.

This roof can support overgrown men!

Tar paper is on, time for shingles.

Amber was a big help on the roofing, and every other thing I needed help with!

Water tight.

Handmade doors, nothing fancy, cedar trim on T1-11 backing.

Finishing up the cedar trim.

Almost done, just needs a ramp.

I managed to build a ramp a week or two later and we loaded her up for the winter!  I wanted to get some stain on it, but I had a lot of other small projects calling my name and I figured this would be good enough until spring.  So this year I had every intention of getting a coat of stain down by the end of May.  I did get gutters installed with the help of Jim, but of course things never go as planned, and I didn't get around to staining until early July.  I went with a basic red-wood stain from Behr for the T1-11, and I plan to put a natural stain on the cedar trim.  Here are some pics of that!

Jim helping with the gutters.  Notice the staining around the bottom of the
 shed from the water run-off. Hopefully the gutters put an end to that!

So far I quite like it. Also, notice the gutters which Jim helped me install!

And that is basically it, Gigi came out for the final inspection, she approved.

So, that was my fun little project last year.  I still need to get a coat of sealant on the cedar, but I will probably wait until fall, once again I have too many other things to do =).  This was a really rewarding experience, and I plan to carry the carpentry skills into a new project...I am going to patch up and fix the garage on the property.  But that will be another blog in the (hopefully) not too distant future. -M