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."

Indoor 2019 Goals

This year, with no time to actually do anything, my goal nonetheless is to continue on my quest for organization. Two disastrous closets remain, and I would love to turn them into something pretty.

The first is in the basement, under the stairs. It is a catch-all for wrapping paper and accessories, a steam vacuum, the cat carrier, some tennis rackets, and who knows what else. The shelves are attached and I feel like the real problem here is not the closet itself, but finding other homes for some of this junk and shopping IKEA and the Container Store to find solutions to categorize and corral the junk. Since it's usually just out of sight/out of mind, I like to forget that this mess is down there. But it's probably time to do something about it.

The bigger closet disaster is harder to forget, because I go in there at least every week or two for clean sheets and towels. Our linen closet, at the top of the stairs, was never a beauty, but after the additional duct work that was installed in 2015, we just utterly gave up even pretending to have a system. I might finally have gotten to the point where I can't handle it anymore.

So here's the problem. Both these goals, plus the "reach" goal of a deck/patio, were our house goals for last year, too (and, in some cases, even the year before).  Oh well, it's still good to have goals.