The new shed

The last of Gordon's big outdoor projects for this year is the new shed. When we moved in, the house had a shed. But, oh my god, what a mess!!! There was so much ivy in it. I think the ivy was holding it up. Not to mention all the nasty things left behind by critters that had been in there. Yuck! Anyhow, we have a two-car garage, but there is so much stuff in there, mostly tools and motorbikes, that I can't park my car in there. So I went through this summer parking my car in the driveway, and I really don't want to do that again. Honestly, some afternoons I'd get into my car after it had been sitting in the sun for a few hours, and I would get third degree burns on my fingers from touching the steering wheel. Not good! So the shed had to get built so that Gordon could put his stuff in it so that I could park my car in the garage.

The first major task was killing the ivy. That took a long time, because it was some large ivy. It was frustrating because he was working so hard but it didn't look like much was changing! Except for the big pile of roots that had to go out in the green bin that is. Once it was pretty much dead, and cleared from the concrete, then he could go to work on that. We used the concrete that had been poured for the old shed, but it need some serious patching and chipping. Then it was time to begin building the actual shed. Gordon actually bought a book "shed-building for dummies" I think it was, and just picked out a nice design and went from there. A picture is worth a thousand words, they say, so click here to see pictures of the shed in progress.

I think the most most stressful time was the day before our first big storms of the season. We knew there would be some serious rain and wind, so Gordon had to get the roof on that weekend, and then get something called housewrap around the shed. That was important because the windows and doors weren't in yet, and the housewrap covered that. Since we were storing all of his tools in the new shed, it was important to keep as much rain as possible out of there. The storm tore up some trees, even dumping some into the pool, and almost destroyed the sunshade, but the shed and the tools stood up well.

Keep checking the photos - it should be finished soon and I'll keep posting photos.