Friday, October 23, 2009

Woodshed functionally complete!

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcWmR8cOai08Gx4NW5LSHxwjSGYW3O5Rmq7VQd9KEnu7yjR9fzHbu1gMsQwvQKlZmyBaMxZbpH8fAlJAGTEy-Bv3CaPxJMt42P0BWLtPhYMj1YgEpRl9SgQzZHVq4G0Ao2C6ugQA/s288/IMG_9954.JPGThe woodshed is functionally finished! That means it now works as a woodshed and will keep our wood nice and dry all winter long. There's still quite a bit to be done, but this milestone is pretty important to me. I'm happy with the roof and the shingles now we've had a metric shit ton of rain in a 24 hr period. I'm starting to feel a little better about the posts and how it might hold up during wind.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ATtlodljbsNiFWLALA5zu_GRFPRtxnHuxJFJ8LB9u_qwgOECsMjEjFmGjwyiGzJeExW6MFCixAYyfHVYZcfZeIGsIyH8Vz0pVKJ2JSN27YzO9H8VJhiwsBu7rU2Gz4Jiugq0jA/s288/IMG_9957.JPGDespite having a really bad cold I worked both days this last weekend to get it done. I put in all the pavers for the base. As you can see the last two rows are pretty wobbly since I wanted to get them done and can easily lift them up to level them out some other day in the future. The super heavy duty waterproof tarps from mytarp.com (slow to ship, no communication, but great tarps!) fitted pretty much perfectly. There's a 3ft overlap at the front which makes a pretty nice airlock to walk through when it's raining. It's really dark in there when the tarps are closed so I got a battery powered LED motion sensing light to try in there and see how that works. I'm still toying with the idea of running real power out to the shed. The floor is set up so the logs rest on those crescent shaped pieces and don't rest entirely on the ground. They also lean a little to the back and along the retaining wall to hopefully reduce the chance of the pile falling on me.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLgHvLADUd4sZHCgnV4jzd5782yePf-FhpYX5HvSxWieLM8Ag7_TqPomJmFgS5Ehlw4Q6BScH70f8_6q0FJu1jvP45QdYK51Z81DuHyMMVvjD3FtvIkYsKi6SzhyddcrgsQPU9og/s288/IMG_9964.JPGI also got more gutter to extend the previous 10ft to the full 12ft of the back of the shed. The current downspout location is temporary until I fit the siding on there. So what's left to do? Whatever's left might wait until next year, we'll have to see how time and the weather cooperates with me. I need to paint it. this is pretty high up on my list of things I'd really like to get done. It's a shame I didn't paint it before putting on the drip edge and the gutters, I can take the gutters off when I finally get time to paint it though. I also need to put some more redwood on the side posts and then route it so that it looks like the side of the house, then paint it red (even though it'll end up being covered by the tarps in the winter). In the summer I plan to take the tarps off and let the wood air out a bit.
While I was loading up the 1+ cord of wood we had stacked up a HUGE rat ran out of the old wood pile and was very upset to be losing his home. I was pretty careful after that. Didn't see any snakes at all during the whole process which was kind of a bummer.
There's something pretty satisfying about standing under a shelter you've made yourself, especially when it's raining outside.
I've just been adding more pictures to the same gallery.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

10.5 Inches!

Today we got 10.5 Inches of rain in 24 hours, can you believe that? That's the most rain in one day we've ever, ever got. The storm was perfectly timed since it started around midnight which is when our weather station starts counting a new day (It can't do random 24 hour periods until I finally hook it up to our home server and then publish it on wunderground.com). You'll be happy to hear I finished sealing the edges on the roof of the woodshed just 12 hours earlier and the poor thing stood up great to the barrage of rain. It wasn't too windy and my gutter worked great keeping quite a lot of water off the retaining wall. We also got another half inch the next day which was just miserable and not impressive.

Saturday, October 03, 2009

Woodshed progress

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIQM4l1x5vnS3ICU_b1h9_2IdAE50qj5yMkOeSGFNd8gjRECudbTPp-airvUdaMJNg7ooOjH1OVBKbVOrkxmB_FzXPZAh3LXp4JAZGPOKKajeFJRKohf12L02s9-laaQgCvP5CJw/s288/IMG_9950.jpgI have managed to damage 3 of the 5 fingers on my left hand so far. Since I'm more than three fifths of the way through the project I think I should be able to finish. It's been going pretty well. I framed up the roof and then slapped the roof on. Then after a fitful night's sleep, I realized the front (and back) edge just wasn't straight enough so I pulled off the roof boards and adjusted the middle planks to make the front and back straight. Now I've really nailed the roofing boards in place and even put the lower drip edge on. Now I just need two more days to felt and shingle the roof and it'll be pretty much done. The super heavy duty tarps that will make up the walls have already been ordered and then I'll need to set some kind of flooring so the wood isn't sitting directly on the ground.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRHtQBO7NjP97gXqUL7PdutB_F7XBcHWksxDHpgSSEcEHZNBPSa3pRhuQ6SSu2w_JtzKtGwVwmVlrympRD2aXJIa3_5HzeLtM1EGB7oJTeh8NFtHwQvsMIaNeyIVbUd_3Ft4BETQ/s288/IMG_9949.JPGHere's how it looks so far. Actually this picture is from when the front and back edge were a bit bowed due to those middle two front to back pieces being a bit too long. I've also installed some flashing on the back posts and will also put it on the front posts too. I'm also going to coat the outside edges of those posts in redwood with some grooves cut in with my router to mimic the redwood siding of the house. During the winter you won't see the fancy fake siding, but in the summer I plan to have the tarps off to let the wood season better.

More pictures of the progress in the gallery. Also in the gallery you'll see my miserable failure at trying to make a huge level to make sure my roof was level. I thought I was genius for coming up with this, but it just never read level and took forever to settle down (to not level) anyway. Oh well, an interesting experiment.