Hello folks,
Sorry, been another epic radio silence session since the last update in March. I'm happy to say that Project Shed has reached practical completion status
I still have electrics to do, but that’s not a priority right now with the light nights extending beautifully into the evening now (Do you all love Spring as much as i do?)
So, to recap from where i left off -I’d suffered a setback with my gloss painted doors falling all over the place inside and denting them. I tweaked the design and continued painting. I gave up with the 3rd coat of gloss on them and thought the finish was good to find a bristle right where the door lock would be on the outside face
With the advice from earlier ringing in my ears though I thought enough was enough and earmarked a Saturday to get the doors hung.
Naturally, it took ALL day to get the locks fitted and the doors hung, but they look pretty good IMO. As with everything else on the project they are totally overspecced, but they look nice, work well and save ugly bolts through my lovely doors
You can just see in that pic that there are larch boards in there for door stops. I had a ton of larch left over so milled some to 100mm wide, rebated a small channel in one edge and fitted some UPVC door seal to help stop the worst of the elements making its way into the shed. It works really well and even with the worst of the rain we've seen there's barely a few drops make it through. It also helps insulate and stops the doors vibrating in their frames, which is good. The advantage with the nightlatch locks is if you've closed the door, its locked and they are a lot less hassle (and prettier) then Brenton bolts and padlocks.
I have to say, having a secure building for the first time in a year felt like a pretty special moment. I'd overcome all of the challenges I’d foreseen and a few i hadn't, so I knew the final push would be relatively easy. The partition went up in an afternoon after I’d finally decided where it would go. I added an extra 300mm to the store side to accommodate 1800mm shelving i had my eye on for storage. I'm quite glad i did, because as you'll see the space is almost full to bursting!
So, using the ever-trusty laser to get the top and bottom partition battens plumb:
no further pictures but it’s a pretty boring 18mm OSB partition. A few coats of cheap emulsion and it was basically done. I ordered some racking off of the web and built it up - fitting the space at the back perfectly. Naturally, i arbitrarily decided where the shelves would go height wise and promptly found it was just too shallow for my chop saw, so out came the mallet to reconfigure the bottom shelf right down. Luckily, not too much effort. Here's a pic of the racks in the space, before i filled it with cr@p:
and the space now dutifully filled to overflowing:
With the new shed starting to fulfil its destiny, i gave the old shed a coat of stain before emptying the last of the junk out (for an 8*6 i had some amount of stuff in it!) and put it up for sale.
I felt almost emotional on Sunday as it came apart for the first time in a decade and was transported away, leaving the garden looking bare, but also not unlike a bombsite
So, with mixed feelings i think it’s time for me to echo the words of old Winston:
It’s been just over a year since i broke ground on this project (here's where i was a year ago today
)
and probably more than 18 months since i first starting thinking seriously about it. I have really enjoyed the experience of planning, designing and building my own shed and I’m glad to say I’m happy with the result
It goes without saying that the experience has been made immeasurably better by the advice, encouragement and banter from this forum. I honestly don’t think i could have done it as well without you. When I look back through the early days of the thread I’m heartened to see not just how the building has developed, but how I've developed too. I'm certainly more confident when it comes to woodworking and tools and wouldn't hesitate to undertake a project like this again (albeit I’d definitely do some things differently
)
So, as a gesture of thanks on behalf of all at TWH2 who've commented on the thread, provided invaluable guidance, assistance and encouragement and given me a kick when I've needed it I'm going to donate 1/3 of the proceeds of the sale of my old shed (£50) to charity. I'd love to hear your suggestions if you have any charities that are close to your hearts and we can agree something for a payment to be made at the end of this month.
Cheers
David