Adding the shell

Next came the siding. I don't remember what the deal was, but Sus wasn't around, so i had to put some of the siding up myself. Note to self for next time i put siding on something - make sure there is someone to help. Siding is awkward and has a way of staying in place until the milisecond that you pull the trigger on the nailgun. Once the nail has embedded itself right in a stud, then you're able to see the error of your ways and that the sheet isn't where you were needing it to be. Oh well, it's not too bad, and what is a little off will just get an extra helping of caulk.




I only got two sides up the first night (after the shingling) and it was just in time, cause it rained like there was another flood coming (actually it just sprinkled a little bit). So the next day i did the third side.



Next came the realization that windows go behind the siding, not in front of it ... something that would have been good to know before hand. I must admit though, it was easy to cut the siding from the inside with a sawzall (one of the greatest tools ever invented by man) using the window frame as the guide. There was no measuring, no guess work, just a simple cut and then a tear-down of the siding.



Meaning that once the window was in and the siding back in place, it fit like a glove.



Sus helped me get side 4 in place, but i think we were rushing to beat the fading light, cause we didn't do any better than i had done on my own.



We got the peak part covered, and another 'ah-ha' moment was that when i realized that i don't have much over-hang on the roof. I hope it doesn't turn out to bite me in the future. I think i should have added another sheet of plywood to the roof. But at this point, it's done and i'm not taking the roof off.



The first two corners are in place and the light is fading, time to head inside ...

Shingles anyone?

The weather forcast showed rain for 10 days straight, so i figured it would be prudent to get the roof shingled. Let's see - the last time i actively shingled a roof was when i lived in Auburn, WA and i helped with re-shingling the church roof. I think i was 14 at the time (i might have the age off), but the idea remains that this is not something i do every day. Thankfully i assisted Bruce with putting a roof on Caiden's play structure a few weeks ago, so i had a pretty fresh idea of what was supposed to happen.



In hind sight, i wish i had put the siding on first. I got up on the roof and the whole thing wobbled and creaked. It was like being on a boat, but without the salmon biting -- hmm, that's a mental picture that brings back painful memories.



Thankfully the weather held out - it rained a little bit at the start of festivities, but tapered off and was really nice the rest of the day.



And at the end of the day, the roof was shingled - and with a little sunlight left, it was on to the siding (which i'll cover in the next post).

Getting the roof on the shed

I tried to weasle Vegas-Josh into flying up to help with building the roof for the shed, but that didn't work out, so i recruited Corvallis-Josh and got some pointers and more drawings from Scott. I'm not sure if this was exactly what Scott has in mind, but it's what is in place now and i'm not changing it.

We started out with preparing the ridge beam. Josh and Sus put the truss supports on the ridge beam while i ate lunch (i needed my strength).



Then we attached some support pieces for the ridge beam. In Scott's drawing, he had noted that the roof should be a 12 / 4 pitch. When i first read this, i was thinking that mean that the peak of the roof would be 4 foot above the top of the structure, so i built the support piece that tall. I attached it to the structure and then noticed how high that was - it was ridiculous - so i called him up and decided it should be 2 foot above. This was much better! (In the picture below, the support piece is just above the blue step on the ladder.)



We set the ridge beam in place and started attaching the trusses. Although we don't have pictures, each truss is then attached with a hurricane strap to the building structure.



By the end of the day, we pretty much had the roof structure in place.



Josh had to take off for a hot date, so Sus and i finished up some of the small stuff, then (in Josh's borrowed Tundra) headed back to Home Depot for sheets of siding and other misc stuff ...