Woodshedding

Erin and I often laugh about the fact that, before we closed on the house, we thought that it needed very little work--sure, the bathrooms and kitchen needed updating, but everything else was fine. I guess in one sense that was true, in the same way that a woman furious at you insists, with her arms crossed, that she's "fine." That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but we have been working nights and weekends to get a lot of things done before winter.

Luckily, there haven't been many unpleasant surprises, but the other day I was jolted by a sudden realization: we don't have any structures for our kids to crouch behind when they're teenagers to experiment with smoking! Sure, there's the barn, but the area behind it is overgrown and covered in poison ivy. Besides, I'll probably be hiding out in the barn from the sullen teenager girls.

Something had to be done, and quickly. Since we need a woodshed anyway, I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. 

Last weekend, I cleared out a spot on the edge of the woods.

The woodshed is going to be a 4'x16' lean-to, (hopefully) very similar to one my dad built a couple of years ago. I took pictures of his earlier this summer, but accidentally deleted them. Oops. I've since called him a few times to pick his brain about how to do this, and will need to do so again this weekend, as I get started in earnest.

Yesterday I set a foundation of ten cinder blocks--one every four feet along the front and back of the structure. I dug out about 6-8" of dirt under each one, then filled each hole with stone dust to make the blocks level. The first two blocks (the front corners of the shed) took me about two hours of crawling around on my hands and knees to get just right. It didn't help that I was unknowingly using a string level with the stupidest marking system ever. But once I found a better level and got those first two blocks right, the rest went a lot quicker, probably because I wasn't spending as much time swearing at the old string level.

The correct string level, reading dead level.

Though at first glance this looks like a picture of a weird combination cemetery/boatyard in the woods, it's actually going to be the foundation for the woodshed:  

Stay tuned! This morning I'm going to get the wood to build the floor platform; I will post about my progress later. But with a shopping list this decisive and organized, what can possibly go wrong?

I'll be using 4...no, 10...no, 8...no, 6...no...yeah, 6 eight foot pressure-treated 2x6s for the floor.