Working 8-5

So I spent my vacation day trying to finish up the shed build.  The first portion of the morning was spent trying out to figure out a way to make the two front doors close securely.  Because of the misalignment of the floor layout the right door was a fraction of an inch high, causing it to get hung up on the frame.

My remediation involved several modifications. I did a lot of hacking and cutting at the mount for the right door hinge.  I cut out the floor to allow it to slide more to the right which in turn would cause the top edge of the door to drop down slightly.  I also inserted a shim in the right side of the front gable to give me another few fractions of an inch of clearance. At the end of my hacking, slashing, shimming and wedging I was able to completely close the right door and utilize the slide latch.  Doing so takes a little extra effort but it’s functional.

The remainder of the build was straight forward where I installed the windows and translucent skylights that are on the eave of the roof.  I finished up the shed build late in the morning.  All that was left to do was to secure the shed floor to the wood platform with lag screws.

Yesterday I also worked on finishing up Cindy’s pull up bar.  The 4″ x 6″ post was cemented in place on Saturday, it felt quit solidly secured to the ground by yesterday.   Since I have built a number of bar structures at this point, adding a 7 foot high bar to the collection was not all that difficult. I had to buy a long bolt for the pull up bar as well as the lag screws for the shed at the local hardware store.  I was surprised how expensive lag screws were at nearly $3 a pop.

I finished up the bar install.  The 7 foot bar is too low for me to do pull ups comfortably but should work out great for Cindy.  I recorded the install on video.

I then drove the 8 lag screws into the shed floor, locking it in place with the wood platform.  I would like to do some additional bracing to lock the walls to the floor although the shed supposedly has a wind load rating of 65 mph as is which should hold up to most storms short of hurricane strength.

Cleaning up the scattered tools and supplies from the two projects took a loooong time.  I bet in total I spent close to two hours.  30 minutes alone was spent cutting up the huge shed boxes with a utility knife so they could fit in the recycle bins.  By the time I officially called my outdoor work as done it was 5PM.

I did get a chance to check out the shed for leaks when a pretty strong afternoon storm blew in.  I got inside the shed as the wind and rain banged off the walls, windows and roof.  The roof looked 100% dry which I was quite relieved about, especially with the two large skylights up there.  Despite some gusty winds the shed walls appeared rock solid.  I felt no movement whatsoever.

When Cindy got home she was quite happy with the fruits of my labor. She was relieved that my hacks were able to compensate for the floor layout problem and she loved her new pull up bar.  It felt good to be done with what was three of the hardest days of labor in recent history.  I can hardly wait to get back to the gym today so I can rest.

I also made a video documenting the platform and shed install if you find that sort of thing interesting.