A Wood Shed

It sounds pathetic but I am showing people pictures of my wood shed . . . mostly the people at the hardware store where I bought all of my supplies.  It is the first building I have built.  Granted, it is not really a building.  It is not secured to the ground . . . but it is not going anywhere either.  It is a canopy of sorts to keep my wood dry.  The tarps are history.

Is it because I am on my own and don’t have a husband to do projects like this?  Possibly.  I really like doing them.  Maybe it is because it saves money.  Or, my father was a carpenter, along with my two brothers.  My two brother-in-laws are electricians, and they know how to do carpentry, too.  I like to do girly things, too, but this is different.  It is guys’ work.  I have to figure it out.  Actually, there really shouldn’t be a line drawn for what men and women do.  Right?  Not these days.

This particular project came along when I decided to get serious about my wood.  Well, it is a big part of my life in the winter.  It is how I survive.  I wanted a wood shed like everyone else had.  All the logs neatly stacked.  All the right sizes easily accessible.

And so, I embarked on building the wood shed.

The size would be basically what I had under my tarp . . . room for three cords of wood, which ended up being 10’ x 12’.  A cord is 4’ x 4’ x 8’.  The design was what I knew about the structure of a building.  No blueprint.  No YouTube video.  I decided on a shed roof.  That would be easiest.  Ordered my wood, had the hardware store saw it, and had it delivered.  It would just sit on bricks up off the ground.

The walls could be put together on the ground.  I was wondering how heavy it would be to lift them.  That was no problem.  It was moving them into place that posed a bit of a challenge.  I mean, how do you move a 12’ studded wall . . . without it coming apart.  Well, it started coming apart but I didn’t care.  It could be fixed.

My neighbor stopped by a few days later to see what I was up to.  Actually, I think he just wanted to make sure it was done correctly.  Did I plumb the walls?  Hmm . . . do I have to do that?  I am just going to nail the walls together . . . it will be fine.  He gets out his level and makes sure the walls are plumb for two of the corners, the rest is up to me.  He helped me move walls around . . . and sawed the 2x4s to the correct size.   Some of them were a quarter inch off.  Why?  I don’t know.

I took a trip to Menard’s to look at saws so I could saw the notch for the rafters.  I had the girl show me this saw and that saw.  There was a man waiting to ask his question.  He had been listening to my questions.  So, he turned to me and said, “Lady, what do you want to do.  I am a woods teacher.  You can use rafter ties and do 2’ on center.”  Now there was some serendipitous action happening then.  How cool is that?  So my rafters got done.  Quite easily, I may add.

Friends . . . men friends . . . with muscles . . . came over to get the wood up on the roof for me.  No way could I do that.  I have my limits.  They added the tar paper . . .  and then I was off shingling.  I had never shingled anything before.  There are directions on the package.  It is not brain surgery.

It didn’t take much to get the walls up.  And the floor in.  With each stage, it got sturdier and sturdier.  I found out I could paint the OSB, which is what the walls are made of and swells up when wet.  Some primer and two coats of paint did it.

Then all the wood had to come out because I reoriented the shed in the other direction . . . and . . . I needed to sort it anyway.  There were pieces that will never fit into my stove, pieces that needed to be split, and finally, pieces I could actually use because I had started firing up my wood stove already.

I rented a splitter.  Now that was a job because all of the wood had to be carted to the driveway, split, and then carted back to the shed.  It was all worth it.  What a joy going into my little wood shed.

Hey, can I show you a picture of my wood shed?