Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Assembling Tom's Shed


 On Saturday (06/27/20) Bob helped Tom and I by picking up his purchased shed at Lowe's by the Dayton Mall. The box fit in the back of Bob's truck perfectly but there wouldn't have been any other way of getting it home save renting a U-Haul. It weighed about 450 pounds so when we got it here we had to open the box and carry the parts individually to Tom's back yard.


 We had previously laid paver bricks onto a fairly smooth platform to hold the shed.




 We stood the parts up against the wooden shed which was already in Tom's back yard. The 90 page manual (Craftsman brand) gave instructions in three languages. Luckily we only had to cover about 30 pages. And that was quite enough.


 The floor is placed ...


 Slowly we followed the instructions and completed  panel by panel and stood them back up ready to place when the instructions called for it.

 The completed shed was a little over 7' x 7'. That's a bit smaller than we originally planned.


Calling the construction "challenging" is accurate. We didn't find any errors but some of the drawings were a little hard to figure out. Photos would have helped. This indeed a two-man job.


 Sometimes we just had to read the step time and again until it sunk in.


 The most challenging part was the roof. On our first attempt things did not fit quite right and we were too tired and it was too late in the day to diagnose the problem. The next day we started anew by disassembling two roof panels and moving them into place again. This time we were successful.


 By mid-day we were down to just one remaining door.


 The finished shed is quite nice ... very sturdy. Tom is only unhappy with a few points when the side walls connect to the floor. Tabs had to be slid into place and they seem not to have held as well as we'd have liked. Probably this is due to the floor not being perfectly level. In fact the manual calls for a wooden pad of plywood and 2x4's. Tom thinks leaving a layer of sand atop the pavers would have done as well. But it is too late now for either.

 On Monday (06/29/20) Tom moved his mower into the structure. It'll house garden tools, too.

 Of all our house remodeling work, this was probably the hardest project.