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| jarrin > My House | |
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Barn Raising 9/22/2007 4:37 PM
July 30, 2006 - I received my box of Starplates a few days ago and called the City of Minneapolis permit office this morning to see about building permits. Apparently you don't need a permit to build a storage shed is the floor space is less than 120 ft2. As it turns out, a pentagon with a side length of 8' yields a surface area of 110.11 ft2. Isn't that awesome? July 31, 2006 - With less than four weeks to go until we leave for Burning Man and without having yet completed my mutant vehicle I have decided to undertake this new construction project. Also, it's been over 100F every day for the past week and so I've gotten very little of anything done. No matter. I'm crazy. I can do anything I want. So I went to Home Depot this morning and bought $226 worth of materials. (And I stopped by my brother's torn-up basement and salvaged another ~80 board feet of green treated 2x4). The good news is that I believe I've purchased nearly everything I'm going to need for assembly (the sides and walls, I'm hoping, can be made out of those old plastic panels that I'll also be using on my mutant vehicle!). August 2, 2006 - I spent six hours in the sun (not, I would like to note, in the rain!) and finished the floor. I also have an awesome sunburn on my entire back now. Tonight, or tomorrow, I'll raise the framework. That will be the fun part. I hope I did the floor correctly. It would suck to find out that the framework doesn't quite fit! Also: I managed to save one of the four sheets of OSB and, instead, use up some of the plentiful scraps of OSC that I've had lying around. August 3, 2006 - Last night my brother was over so I had him help me put up the framework. It took us less than an hour to get all twenty-five 8' 2x4 beams in place. I can hang from the center point, 12' in the air, and discern no stress on the structure at all. It is very sturdy! This was the fun part. Now I have to go buy some siding material and make it none-see-through. August 4, 2006 - Logan helped me put up a couple of the wall panels. Two were accidentally made too large and one was cut at the wrong angle. Fortunately, I was able, this morning, to repair the mistakes and finish assembling all the wall panels. Now I merely need him to come back and help me install the remainder. It might rain tonight so I kinda want to have the sheathing and roof finished before 9p. Hard work! August 5, 2006 - Finished putting up all the side panels (by myself!). Today's mantra is "that's what the trim's for". Actually, the panels are pretty well positioned. I think a few might be too high, which could potentially interfere with the roofing. If that happens, I'll just use my saws to trim them down a bit. Better too big than too little. I'm also starting work on the roof. The vertical support beams are in (which involed some complex compound miter cuts that didn't work out quite as well as I had hoped). Now I'm going to see about mounting the plastic panels and eaves. With luck I can get it topped off before tonight's potential rain hits. (Then it'll be time for beer.) August 7, 2006 - I have abandoned the plastic panel roofing idea. I threw a few onto the roof to see how they looked and they looked dumb. So I bought some more RTD sheathing and screwed that up instead. It was surprised at how not too-difficult it was to get those ten half-triangles attached to the roof. The biggest problem I had was with the fucking exterior grade screws. The galvanizing process dulls the points which makes it really hard to get them to set into the wood. I squashed my fingertips with the drill more times that I care to remember. (Though, happily, I used exactly two pounds of 1 1/4" exterior grade screws with none left over!) Tomorrow morning I intend on tarpapering the roof, painting the siding, building a temporary door and transfering all my scrap lumber, &c. into the new storage shed. Hurrah! August 8, 2006 - Started tarpapering the sides with left over tarpaper. I ran out about 2 2' short of finishing the walls (which I decided to paper instead of paint) and already had to make an exrta run to the hw store for more materials. My other coworker, Charles, lent me another 30 pound roll of tarpaper so I could finish the pinnacle. I used about 1% of what he gave me. The barn is now more-or-less finished until I return from Burning Man. August 9, 2006 - Started building doors this morning. I cut five 1x4 boards into edges for the doors and then attached plywood to the backs. A couple coats of Killz primer and some hinges and they should be perfectly serviceable. In fact, my miter cuts were tight. I don't think any of my carpentry has turned out this nicely before. August 14, 2006 - Got the doors hung. They're not perfect but they're good enough. Hopefully I'll get it sided and roofed before the snow hits! September 24, 2006 - Finished roofing. I have exactly zero full shingles leftover and used up every one of the two pounds of roofing nails I bought. How's that for close margins? Amusing anecdote: I borrow Charles' straight ladder last week so that I'd be able to get onto the roof but up until today I'd just been using my 6' A-frame ladder. Today I finally was going to need the longer ladder to climb up on top of the roof but, alas, Charles had reclaimed it to do some of his own work on his house. So, instead, I once again backed my Jeep up next to the barn and used that to get on top. I'm sick of backwards crab walking but it works well enough. September 22, 2007 - My brother helped me hang the siding panels. Did you notice that it's been a year since the last update? That's right. I move slowly. Material Cost (so far):
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