Garden Shed part four

As you can see from my post tally, I've gone from updating my blog every other day to posting twice a month at best, and it's all due to my day job taking over; last weekend I was so overwhelmed with work that I didn't even set foot in the workshop....

This Saturday though, it was different: the bin lids were back in town and ready to rock and we had a shed to work on! After case-hardened waffles and non-shatter-proof bacon for breakfast, we dispatched Quinn and Amy to the local lumber yard to pick up supplies, and Sam, Ruby and myself set up our backyard workshop.

We started off by filling-in the final wall that we didn't quite manage to finish last time; we did actully cut the timber last time though, so the wall went up pretty quickly and then Sam nailed on the top plate.

Now it was roof time! Sam and I used trigonometry to figure the roof angle is 18 degrees, and then we carefully measured for the rafter length and where to place the birds eyes. It took a little while to create the perfect rafter, and we were just about finished when Quinn and Amy got back from the lumber yard with the next batch of material. After a quick cuppa tea, we lined up our new material and went into mass production.

We used our first rafter and a framing square to scribe all the others, and then we bevelled all the ends with one pass of the circular saw, and cut them all to length with a second pass. We need a double birdsmouth for this style of roof. The two heel were made with the circular saw set to 18 degrees and a depth of about an inch and a quarter.

We had to make the seat cuts with the jigsaw one at a time...

This is how it looks installed:

We used double rafters at the sides of the roof which are made by nailing two boards together, and yes, this level of strength is total overkill for what we are building.

Time to scatter the rafters and install them. This was a three man operation:

Once all the rafters were secured we crafted some blocks to fit between the end rafter and the side walls, and Sam nailed them in nice and tight:

On to the sheeting. Sam and Quinn risked life and limb to install the roof sheeting:

That was it for the day, except...

....there was just enough time for a quick stress test:

To be continued....

Garden Shed part three

Building our soon-to-be tool shed has evolved into a full-on family project - we're all at home, and the bread snappers are old enough now to be trusted with all the tools I've spent so long keeping them away from.  

Last Saturday we got cracking on the walls - many hands make light work, so I gave Amy Sheep a cutting list and put her and Quinn in charge of the miter saw.

It would have been easier to construct the back wall on top of a larger base, but we made do with what we had....

I put Sam in charge of the cordless nail gun. Quinn precut all the blocks so we installed them as we went along instead of trying to squeeze them in later.

We had to stand the wall up to check for square before Sam nailed on the top plate:

Time for some siding, so I pitched in with the circular saw....

Once the back wall is erected (!) it will be too close to the fence to paint it easily, so I had Amy and Ruby Sheep roller on the top coat; the siding comes pre-primed. We're painting the shed the same color as the house because (1) it will blend in more and (2) we already have the paint and (3) most importantly, we don't have to go through the agony of choosing a color...

While this was going on Sam and Quinn tried out the hammock.

We raised the back wall while the paint was still wet, and then touched-in the finger prints. A quick bit of pythagoras-in-real-life, and we had the wall braced and square.

On to the front....we framed out the basis of the front wall before we decided to pack up for the day - the front wall will be mostly a pair of double doors so it needs a big opening.

The next afternoon Sam and I headed back out to the yard and installed some more bulk at the door opening and put in a header I made from a scrap piece of 2" x 10" redwood I had on my lumber rack.

The rest of the sheep were otherwise engaged, so Sam had to take over the circular saw...

...and the nail gun

When it was time to raise the front wall we had to call in some muscle.

After that Sam and Amy worked on measurements for the side walls...

...and Quinn took over on the nail gun.

By Sunday packing-up-time we had the front and back walls installed and one side wall framed out. Not too shabby!

To be continued....