Dig My Driveway

This will be the last weekend of summer. How IS that possible?! Am I the only one that’s freaking out about it?

At least the mother is busy with her work on the foundation. I had to move all my plywood and frame boards for the shed – and a whole bunch of other crap – to give her access to the carport side of the house. She was caulking and starting to paint yesterday.

"Pimp My Shed" is going to have to go on temporary hiatus while I devote time to Dig My Driveway instead. I can always wear sweats and a jacket to work on the outside of the shed. Driveway seal has a few more requirements where temps are concerned. If I had a list, it would get bumped up on it.

I need to figure out how much driveway seal I need and what kind of patch I’m going to get and start doing it. We’re supposed to (again, nodding at KayO) have good weather through at least Monday and as long as we have highs in or near the 80s, the sealer should dry up well. So guess what I’m doing this weekend?

I forgot my camera AGAIN! Damn me anyhow. In fairness, I was lucky to get out the door this morning. I’m getting a cold which makes it hard to sleep and I’m a little stressed about some other stuff which has made it harder still to sleep. (About 12 hours so far this week. Not good.) I was slow to rise this morning and got ready pretty hurriedly, so the camera wasn’t exactly a priority.

I didn’t even LOOK for Lewis & Clark on the way in this morning (though I have since purchased the song.) Its crest is forecast for tomorrow so I’ll try very hard to remember!

"Sheddie" Shots

OK. You asked for them. Here they are. But please don’t say that I didn’t warn you: They’re BORING. Boring as hell when you consider some of the creations that populate unclewilco’s site.


Oh. My. God. I am so not worthy of having a shed tour with these folks. In fact, I want Tim’s shed. Who knew there was a blog site devoted to “sheddies?!”

Of course I wasn’t planning to turn my shed into anything other than storage space either. When you have a small house, storage space is at a premium. And I can tell you that taking stuff out over the weekend was a little like experiencing Shriners exiting a Volkswagen. How in the hell did we even get all of it in there to begin with? And, why do we even have some of it? (I did get Carole to part with a few bags of trash and a small pile of usable items – usable by other people – for donation.)

You still have time to back out because here’s where it gets boring. (Especially after seeing unclewilco’s goodies.) First up, the back of the shed. See that dimply area along the left corner of the wall? Those first few boards are the problem area. That’s what prompted this adventure. I was just going to work on the outside.


While the inner wall had been caulked and filled with Great Stuff previously, it was clearly in need of more as witnessed here.



I took care of that first. While that was drying, I started adding a bit of framing and then put up some plywood. The mother is convinced that I’m going to cause the shed to collapse. I think the opposite is true. My goal: Encapsulate the failing surface structure, ideally stopping the deterioration in its tracks and putting in a newer, stronger surface. I put framing only on solid boards and some of the additions are now even helping to support the roof, an area where at least one main board is failing.


While I was working on opposite walls, the mother came along behind me and painted them. Here are some completed walls.



See, I told you it was boring.

Unfortunately, that was as far as the work got yesterday. That’s due in large part to my failure to comprehend geometry and to correctly calculate the angle cuts I needed to make for each of the corners. (Two are up though they are extremely sad, true testaments to my feeble abilities in this area.) My lacking abilities are further challenged by the fact that none of the corners match. Ideally, I should be able to make two patterns with each being a mirror image for the opposite side. Ideally.

Because the shed was damaged during its first year or two (crashed into by a Jeep Cherokee that upended the very corner where the damage is today – it’s a long story) it has never been right. So it took me no less than four tries to get a template I could use to try and modify for each corner’s own quirks. That really slowed work down so we still have the one tiny front wall and the whole BIG back wall to complete.

Between the weather and a shocking event (a future post topic) I’m not sure when I’ll get back to it. And there’s still the outside to do.

On another note, I would be remiss to not mention that today is a very special day. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my good friend, and heavy hauler CD!!!! Hope you get something extra good for your special day.