Great Shed Weekend Part 1: The situation in which we find ourselves is grim
Hi everyone,
Alta has been keeping you updated on many of our projects around the house, but I wanted to chime in on a major project that is OUTSIDE the house. Somewhere along the way, our property got a little "handle". It's about 22' long and 18 '' wide. Somewhere else along the line, a secondary hobby garage was built. Yet later, said hobby garage fell into grave disrepair. I say grave, because shortly after I moved in, I was informed via formal letter from the Lake Orion Police that the shed had to be renovated or it would have to come down. Furthermore, because of village ordinances (we have a lot of those in Lake Orion Village), the shed could not be rebuilt. So, I went to work to save the shed!
Being a handy musician, I knew I could do most of the work but not design the structure. So I enlisted the help of my friend Kevin. That was the correct decision! Kevin was an amazing project leader and we had a great time when he and his family came to visit our family. Below is an edited letter I sent Kevin in March about what needed to happen...
Kevin:
I spent some time today putting together some thoughts on the shed, now that it is warm enough to get some good pics. It’s gonna be a giant project, but one that is really exciting. Sooo… here we go.
General Info:
Dimensions:
14 X 20 X 9 short x 14 high
In general, the south wall isn’t too bad. The Garage door isn’t particularly good, but it does well enough, and when we are finished I will seal it up from the inside until I can replace it.
This isn’t too bad either. The wall itself is in good shape and there will be some replacement of the lowest boards that have a little rot.
Definitely the best of the standing walls, this needs very little.
But…
Major rot all about this wall. Wall framing, door framing, base boards, and roof framing all rotted. Which leads to the biggest issue,
Oh my, this is bad. As you can see, the highest beam, Which is actually a bunch of smaller 2x4 put side by side, but not offset, so they are incredibly weak. This has ruined the roof on two sides. Also, as seen here
Entire framing of the western wall to the roof is rotted. Terrible.
The foundation has a sizable crack, but that is beyond the scopeof what I want to do. Shelving seems fine. Lighting fixtures and electrical outlets needs checking
So, here is what I was thinking, but please feel free to let me know what might be a better way to doing things. The reality is that most of the roof (60%) needs to go. I figure we strip the shingles, and boards; fix the framing issues around the western wall and ensuing twisting (the shed twist somewhat counter clockwise), then fix the roof framing, replace boards that are rotted with good wood and have a standing, shingle-less structure. There should be several guys to help, and I figure if you can help me with the engineering part of it, we could get that done in a F afternoon, Sa, Sun. I would get the materials and fasteners along with preparation done before everyone came, so it would be just demolition and construction. I would deal with the shingling and painting at a later date. What do you think?
DD
Next up: The Plan! Kevin comes to town and introduces us to the Bottle Jack. We buy much lumber. We bust out the level.
Alta has been keeping you updated on many of our projects around the house, but I wanted to chime in on a major project that is OUTSIDE the house. Somewhere along the way, our property got a little "handle". It's about 22' long and 18 '' wide. Somewhere else along the line, a secondary hobby garage was built. Yet later, said hobby garage fell into grave disrepair. I say grave, because shortly after I moved in, I was informed via formal letter from the Lake Orion Police that the shed had to be renovated or it would have to come down. Furthermore, because of village ordinances (we have a lot of those in Lake Orion Village), the shed could not be rebuilt. So, I went to work to save the shed!
Being a handy musician, I knew I could do most of the work but not design the structure. So I enlisted the help of my friend Kevin. That was the correct decision! Kevin was an amazing project leader and we had a great time when he and his family came to visit our family. Below is an edited letter I sent Kevin in March about what needed to happen...
Kevin:
I spent some time today putting together some thoughts on the shed, now that it is warm enough to get some good pics. It’s gonna be a giant project, but one that is really exciting. Sooo… here we go.
General Info:
Dimensions:
14 X 20 X 9 short x 14 high
South Wall
In general, the south wall isn’t too bad. The Garage door isn’t particularly good, but it does well enough, and when we are finished I will seal it up from the inside until I can replace it.
East wall
This isn’t too bad either. The wall itself is in good shape and there will be some replacement of the lowest boards that have a little rot.
North Wall
Definitely the best of the standing walls, this needs very little.
But…
Western Wall
Major rot all about this wall. Wall framing, door framing, base boards, and roof framing all rotted. Which leads to the biggest issue,
Roof
Oh my, this is bad. As you can see, the highest beam, Which is actually a bunch of smaller 2x4 put side by side, but not offset, so they are incredibly weak. This has ruined the roof on two sides. Also, as seen here
Entire framing of the western wall to the roof is rotted. Terrible.
The foundation has a sizable crack, but that is beyond the scopeof what I want to do. Shelving seems fine. Lighting fixtures and electrical outlets needs checking
So, here is what I was thinking, but please feel free to let me know what might be a better way to doing things. The reality is that most of the roof (60%) needs to go. I figure we strip the shingles, and boards; fix the framing issues around the western wall and ensuing twisting (the shed twist somewhat counter clockwise), then fix the roof framing, replace boards that are rotted with good wood and have a standing, shingle-less structure. There should be several guys to help, and I figure if you can help me with the engineering part of it, we could get that done in a F afternoon, Sa, Sun. I would get the materials and fasteners along with preparation done before everyone came, so it would be just demolition and construction. I would deal with the shingling and painting at a later date. What do you think?
DD
Next up: The Plan! Kevin comes to town and introduces us to the Bottle Jack. We buy much lumber. We bust out the level.
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