Garden Shed - Day 3-4 - Wall Framing

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Day 3 - 69-96 degrees and partly cloudy

Farm Life
Working from sun up to sun down in September turned out to have an interesting unforeseen twist. The weather surprised me daily with daily temperature swings of nearly 30 degrees on most days! I would start they day wearing multiple layers, a hat, finger-less gloves and some hot chocolate and/or coffee. By the end the day I was taking a quick relaxing dip in the pool.

When you are hoping to get an early start on the day the trick is to set your body in motion before your brain becomes alert enough to realize what is going on and send you back to bed. To do this I try to be outside within 10 minutes of waking up so there is no point of return.  I survey the progress from the prior day, gather my tools and set a plan for the day. On some mornings I would stop and stare out across the fields and breath in the sweet clean air of the country. If I stop for long enough I will eventually see some deer quietly cutting through the dense fog in search of breakfast. I usually have to check myself to make sure I'm not still asleep dreaming. 

I really do enjoy this type of lifestyle where its manual labor from sun up to sun down. I like the physical challenge and the rewarding results of a good days work. I could probably classify it as a feeling that lands between being an addiction and just not wanting to stop for fear that my body would realize it's tired and sore. Keep moving and it will never know the truth that I'm terribly out of shape! 

Phase 5 - Wall Framing

With a level and flush floor in place it was easy to build the walls there on site. I tacked a 2x to the edge of the platform and used it as a stop for when I started swinging the hammer. 

 

The height of the floor also made it extremely convenient for me to use the miter saw off to the side. Less walking made for more framing!

When the walls started to go up I decided it was a good time to move the behemoth cabinet from the barn into the shed and build the remaining walls around it. It's not that it wouldn't fit later but it did eliminate the awkwardness of pushing it through the front door. There were a couple other benefits of having it there that would be come apparent to me in time. 1. It gave me a place to set and store tools outside. 2. It gave the daily visitors something to talk about! 

As I mentioned earlier we had to make a few design decisions in the middle of the week. One was to figure out what type or roofing the shed would have. While everyone hesitated to suggest it, we all wanted to use the same thing. It was to be metal roofing! Metal roofing would last a very long time, would sound great below a spring rain, and would reduce the overall weight of the roof by quite a bit. The girls found a potential contact who carried a tremendous amount of colors, profiles and accessories. After a quick visit they brought back 3 colors samples to consider. Stopping for a quick break everyone cast a vote and the color was selected.

And everyone was happy!

Day 4 - 68-76 degrees and rainy

Siding

Halfway through my week off the secret weapons were released. My mum and Sue came out swinging hammers and kicking up saw dust as they tackled the shed's siding. This was the second decision we had to make on site, how to sheath the structure. It cost a bit more but the look and feel of the pine tongue and groove siding (inside and out) was too nice to turn down. It also helped reduce scrap since we could reuse the waste side of a board elsewhere. 

My mum stopping to reload the hammer.

Sue measuring twice before cutting...or was that  4 times?

It was great to see the walls being enclosed while the roof framing was being wrapped up. There was hope of this shed being enclosed before I had to leave!

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