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Thursday, February 28, 2019

Shed-ding our Stuff

One project we've toyed with that I forgot to include in our outdoor goals for 2019 is constructing a shed. Even though I forgot to mention it, it's actually the thing we are most likely to do this year. Especially now that we're going to have a vegetable garden, it would be nice to have access to our gardening tools without having to go all the way to the garage at the front of the house. We have decided nothing at this point, and are looking to our reader (all one of you) for suggestions.

First, placement. We already have this concrete pad that seems perfect. We would have to destroy the wood burning stove (that we never used) and move the sandbox, but otherwise, it's ready. The problem is that it measures 7' x 15' and a common width for sheds seems to be 8'. We don't know enough about what kind of base a shed entails, so we are trying to figure out if some of it can overhang off the pad (i.e. put the foundation blocks about 6-12 inches back under the base).  Adding to the concrete pad sounds extreme (rebar and stuff we don't really want to do). We know we want something a bit sturdier and more "house-like" than the fiberglass one-piece ones from Home Depot or Lowes, but that's all we know so far. To our surprise, from what we can figure out, it doesn't look like we will need a county permit, and maybe not a town one either (locals, feel free to weigh in**edited to add that I found our town permitting forms at last and we do indeed need at least a town permit.**) based on the size we're looking at (8' x 12' probably). Beyond that, we're clueless.
In a related matter, our yard is under water like never before. We have had so much rain that the ground everywhere is muddy mush, and some of it, like here, actually has standing water on it. I'm relieved our yard is graded away from our house. (This further convinces us that the shed has to be standing up above the concrete pad, that's for sure.)

The last time it was this wet - and windy as it has been on some days - we had the big tree fall on our house. I feel like I'm holding my breath these days every time we get..."weather."

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