shed renovation

Wind, weather, water caused my work shed to have serious damage, not to mention ants, squirrels and the occasional mouse family. I had piled firewood next to it, which trapped moisture and attracted termites. After a new roof jazzed up the top last year, I needed to fix up the side with the most damage.

Home Depot carried the right 8-inch fake panel plywood, and was able to rip the 4x8 foot sheet into 4 2x4 sheets, easy for carrying and pretty close to the size of the damaged area. Their paint mixing computer had crashed overnight, so after an hour of patient waiting, browsing and strolling, I skipped the final required material for now.

Supplies:

• Plywood $25
• Outer corner (oak) $16
• Adhesive $3
• Gloves $8
• Galvanized 6 penny common nails $4

I took photos along the way. The most challenging part was that the shed is not level or plumb, and joining a series of 4 foot seams was tricky. Taking out the old plywood went fairly easily, and at first I thought the cuts were pretty straight. I knew I would have gaps, which was why I got construction adhesive rather than plan caulk. The older upper layer is a little warped outward , so it looks like there won't be a shelf for rain to be directed inside.

To get the thumbnail index shot above, I used the NetPBM graphics package. The manual said there is a pamundice utility, but all that the latest NetBSD package built was pamdice. So I settled for pnmindex. With 12 shots at 1MB each, that's a lot of bandwidth. After chopping out the text with Xpaint, the thumbnail graphic is under 30 KB. Shows a lot for so few bytes.

Tools:

• Black & Decker jig saw (ca. 2000)
• Black & Decker 7 1/4 in. circular saw (ca. 1973)
• Craftsman 6 1/2 in circular saw (ca. 1958)
• Stanley 20 oz claw hammer (ca 1980)
• Ace Hardware 4 foot level (?)
• Black & Decker Workmate (ca 1980)

Still need to paint it before spring rains!