ElectroLund

Like giving birth, the pain is now behind us.

We are finally done with the shed, hurray! Here’s the play-by-play of the last weekend of construction.

First step is to dress properly for serious hard physical labor. Case in point:

Cowboy Rob

Funny, isn’t it? Almost a decade I spent in Texas without ever wearing a cowboy hat, and less than a year in Colorado… Ahh, the power of women.

Sar’s chosen outfit for the day:

Sar, ready for a grueling day

And Mark’s attire sadly didn’t include a full Ninja uniform. But he had the moves down:

Baker Fu!

The first step was to prepare the foundation for the shed.

foundation frame

I got an anchoring kit from Arrow (the shed company). The kit includes 4 corkscrew type rods and metal brackets that screw into the earth at each corner.

foundation anchor bracket

On top of the foundation we stapled two layers of plastic sheet for a vapor barrier. Next, the flooring went down. We used half inch plywood with support braces interspersed for structural support.

foundation flooring

Because the backyard is so small, we had to remove some slats from the picket fence to move shed material in from the outside.

the boys playing with the fence

Then we started assembling the base frame of the shed.

floor frame layout

Next up was the wall frames.

completed building frame

Again, the smallness of the yard was beginning to look worse and worse. On the far side fence, the clearance was maybe inches, so close that Mark had to remove slats there as well just to gain access for the power drill!

improvised extra inches

Then, it was time to insert the wall sections.

Mark using a shovel for some reason (?)

Each wall piece fit down the upright wall beams like a garage door closes. I’m not sure how much mark is contributing above. Obviously the heat has affected his judgment in selecting a shovel for this task. That’s why it was important to take an emergency popsicle break.

much needed popsicle break

Mark, Royal, & Rob looking cool

Next up was the roof gables.

the gables go up

These pieces were the hardest to assembly because they were especially flimsy. The shed material was very thing gauge steel and the gables had to magically stand on their own before the cross beams were added. It’s a good thing we had three people to work on this together, because at time, we had 2 people holding gables and the third putting cross beams up.

cross beams go up

The final stage, roof material, was one of the easier to do.

view from master bedroom

After that was the door.

completed Red Barn

You can see just how close the shed comes to the house here:

inches from house!

So close, in fact, that we had to modify the roof slightly to get it to clear the kitchen window.

wood pile behind the barn

Here’s a view of the clearance below the kitchen and the shed. I’m using that space for firewood.

inches from house!

Here’s the clearance on the other side of the shed to the fence.

inches from fence!

Yeah, you can definitely tell that an over eager electrical engineer designed the layout of this shed, not an architect.
But at least Sar and I now have a completed Red Barn shed in our backyard!

cowboy Rob and the little lady in their barn

And everything fits too!

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