The Shed Saga Continues

Even though we “finished” building our shed last summer it seems that we weren’t really done. As soon as the weather got a little warmer less rainy Chris jumped at the chance to finish the last big stage of the shed. He has been planning on adding a lean-to on the back of the shed for a while now. He has wanted to not only shelter the dog kennel but also to be able to add some more covered storage.

Chris started out by attaching a 2×6 board to the shed. To do this he had to remove a single row of siding. Then out on the edge of the concrete slab he built a frame of two 4×4’s and a 4×6 header. After the framework was together he cut and attached rafters using brackets.

Once the rafters were in place Chris cut to screwed up the trim. With the trim in place he added the plywood sheeting on top and then stapled on the tar paper.

Chris didn’t want to leave the pressure treated 4×4 posts unfinished so we came up with an inexpensive solution; cedar fence boards.

Chris cut a bunch of pieces to size first. Then he held them in place while I nailed them up. Here’s what the first post looked like when we were almost done.

Chris was worried it would start to rain soon so he left the pillars and finished the roofing. Again Chris pretty much did all the work here. I mostly just helped lay out the shingles so that he could nail them down.

Here’s the glamour shots of the new lean-to all finished. Roofing is on and posts are finished.

I think the posts turned out pretty good and blend well with the rest of the shed.

Now I guess we can move onto the next outdoor project. Maybe we’ll wait until it get’s a little warmer first.

Has anyone else not been able to wait for nicer weather to start an outside project?

For more info on the shed check out the posts here, here and here.

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The Odyssey of a Shed (Grand Finale)

*Check out the rest of the shed saga here and here.

At the end of part two we had put up all the rafters we started in on the roof. I didn’t take any photos of the roof with just the sheeting up but here it is will the tar paper on.

And again from another angle.

Then we started in on the shingles. Chris did all the work here I just brought things up to him. You can’t see it here but Chris did cut and lay a starter strip before starting on the rest of the shingles.

He is also the one who climbed around on the roof. Heights are not really my thing.

Even the cats got in on the action. Here Chris was just finishing up the roof by adding the caps that he cut from another set of non-architectural shingles.

After the roof was on we were finally a little less worried about any impending rain we thought we would be getting. That’s one of the bad things about deciding to finally get on this project so late in the summer/fall. The other issue; it gets dark early.

Before we put up the siding we decided to wrap the shed in Tyvex. It was a choice we keep going back and forth on but in the end decided to go with it.

Once we had the structure wrapped we headed back to the big ‘ole box store again. This time we picked up all the siding.

Chris installed the rest of the trim before we started in on the siding.

He even added in some of the flashing.

To cut the siding we rented a tool at a local rental shop. It was pretty easy to use and had basically no dust which was great.

Then we just got to work putting up all the siding. Chris created two tools out of scrap wood so that we could make sure there was an even offset on each row of siding.

We worked our way around the shed with the siding and finally finished up all the corners and edges that had to be cut to fit around the windows and door. Then Chris came back and caulked the edges edges around the trim.

Once the siding was up we decided to go ahead and paint in hopes that we could finish before it got to cold and rained.

This is the spot where I short of gave up. From here Chris worked at getting all the cedar shakes up to finish it off. He even got some more gravel to mound around the slab to use as a ramp for the riding lawn mower.

Didn’t he do a great job. It’s like a little mini house over there. Once it was all finished we even had some lighting wired up. While we were having some other work done we had an electrician bring wiring out to the shed. He even wired it so that the flood light on the back would turn on when our back porch lights turn on. Which is really convenient when Chris goes out to take care of the dog in the dark. The other wiring was to a light by the door and an outlet and shop light for the interior.

Here’s a close up of the side. It’s pretty right?

It really is a mini house. We were hoping that it would blend in and wouldn’t decrease the value of the house. Not that we are planning on moving anytime soon.

That’s the end. It already has a bunch of things shoved in there and out of the weather and the garage. All that’s left is figuring out some shelving for better storage. That probably won’t happen until later this summer.

The Odyssey of a Shed (Part 2)

As I was going through photos for the Project Page (go check it out) and I realized that I never finished posting about our shed! Really it has been done for months now but it seems that I forgot to put together the rest of the photos. So, here we go. If you’ve forgotten about our shed go check out Part 1.

When I last left off I showed the picture of the walls framed and up.

Once the walls were up Chris installed the rafter ties and started to work on building the rafters.

Chris created a jig so that he could make each rafter as identical as possible.

Here’s the stack of all those rafters. These were 100% Chris here. I was of no help.

Then I came back on the scene and started to help put up all the rafters.

We tried to center them as much as possible but since nothing in woodworking can be perfect things were a little off in places.

This is were it really began to look like a shed, and when we realized just how big this thing was going to be.

After the rafters were all up we started to install the windows that Chris had found on craiglist. Lookin’ pretty fancy.

Before we started to install the roof Chris wanted to put the OSB on the walls so that the structure would be more stable when he was climbing around on the roof.

We worked our way around the shed installing the OSB around all the sides and windows.

At this point we ran out of wood that we already had in the garage thanks to what we inherited from my dad.

We went on yet another trip to the hardware store to pick up more materials.

We continued working around the shed hanging the sheeting.

We finally made it all the way around the shed and we were ready to start working on the roof.

The last thing we did before starting on the roof was install the trim boards on the ends of the rafters. Chris had read somewhere that if you installed these first you could use them to balance the roof sheeting on while you are nailing it down.

Now onto part 3….. I promise this time I’ll get around to posting the last part in a little more timely manner.

The Odyssey of a Shed (Part 1)

I think we can finally say that our big project of the summer/fall/early winter is done! (well pretty much)

Since we would love to use our mid sized three car garage for more than just storage we decided that we really needed a shed. That way we can get some of the stuff out of the garage and have more room to work on fun wood projects.

Chris pretty much did all the research and planning and I just came along for the ride and to be another set of hands to hold things. I don’t think I could explain all the little details of how the shed came together but I did take some pictures along the way. So think of this as more of an overview of what we did and less of a tutorial.

The first step of the process what setting up the forms for our concrete foundation. We decided to go with the concrete foundation not only for the solid base for the shed but also because we wanted the pad for the dog kennel as well.

Here it is after Chris leveled the ground, set up the forms and compacted layers of gravel. he left the front of the form off so we could drive the wheel borrows of concrete to the front.

I think this was the first major trip to get wood for the structure.

Then Chris worked on attaching the pressure treated sill plates to the concrete using anchor bolts.

It didn’t take long for Chris to get the dog kennel all set up on the end of the pad.

This is a close up of the anchor bolts.

This is after the first wall was framed up. We were pretty proud of this one.

Here Chris was laying out the boards for the next wall so that they could all be cut to the same length.

Here’s wall number two.

And 3…

It was nice to see things starting to come together. Here’s the first two walls framed and up.

Here is the third wall and the last almost ready.

Finally here’s the last wall framed and up.

There were so many pictures and so many steps along the way that I thought I’d split it up. So there’s the first part. When I finally get around to finishing the rest of the photos and putting them together I’ll share part two.

Anyone else work on any big projects this summer? Check out the rest of the shed saga here and here.