He/She Shed

 Last summer, my wife we decided to begin a project that has been on our list for awhile, to build a greenhouse. While mulling that over, I thought it would be nice to include room for a lawnmower so that I can mow my own lawn instead of hire it out as I have done the last ten years. Unlike many of our peers, we actually like parking our vehicles in the garage overnight and so didn't have room for a lawnmower too. So we settled on building something half greenhouse and half storage shed.

At first I looked for the easy route of purchasing a kit but I never could find one that fit our needs and so I decided to just design and build it myself. Early last fall I built concrete forms and was able to finagle my concrete guy to work me in between projects. With beautiful weather late into the year, I was able to get everything dried in before the snow flew but I wasn't able to get the siding up. I had planned for that and so bought more expensive sheathing which was essentially plywood with a waterproof coating on it that was supposed to be good for up to six months of inclimate weather. 

My wife was in charge of deciding on the siding with my only request being that it was not attractive to woodpeckers which inhabit our area and are fond of poking holes in it as frequently as possible. She went with a barn board looking vinyl siding. I hadn't designed around installing siding vertically and thus having the proper amount of backing for nailing so I had to do some research. In the end, I decided to just screw it on using short screws so that the plywood itself would hold it but application was going to be tricky since I couldn't seat the screws tight. When installing vinyl, one leaves the nail heads slightly gapped from tight to allow the vinyl room to expand and contract as the temperature changes. So too I did this with screws, which meant I didn't get it installed as fast as I might have.

But with a nice stretch of weather one week this spring, I was able to get it up and I think it looks pretty good for vinyl. The only complaint I have is that I had to order it by the box and because it only took a box and a half to do the entire structure, I have a half box leftover that is now up in my attic. Perhaps I or someone I know will have a small project and I can get rid of the extra in an environmentally friendly manner sometime in the future.

So Phase One of the he/she shed project is now complete. Phase Two includes adding a gutter and rain collection system with possibly a foot pump and sink for the inside to aid in watering plants and washing pots and tools. Phase Three might be to install a bed in the lawnmower storage half for when I'm kicked out of the house but I hope we never get to that phase.