Sheds

Terra Bella shed, by the pumphouse.

It's becoming a pattern. Each house Shari and I have purchased, I built a shed.

The first two were on Whidbey Island and they served primarily as houses for lawn mowers and other garden equipment.

The one on Terra Bella was big and housed Scottie, the tractor-mower. It had a ramp and double doors for access, and lots of room for two tillers (large and small), chainsaws (large and small), weed whackers, pressure washers, and various other garden tools necessary to maintain order on five acres.

The small Dunlap shed on one end of the back deck.

The Dunlap house by Freeland also has a lawn, but nothing a push mower couldn't handle. So the required shed was on a much smaller scale, just wide enough for the mower and a few garden implements.

Now I am building a shed at the San Simeon house. It will not be a home for any lawn mower. I took out the last vestiges of lawn a couple of years ago. We still have a lot of stuff parked in a dust-infested storage unit. There is furniture and second kitchen stuff that we hope to use in a guest casita we would like to build when we get rich and famous. We still have boxes of papers and winter clothes that we pack away with the changing seasons. And I still have a pressure washer and chainsaw, although both are electric and not two-stroke engines.

Work in progress, the 8x16 foot San Simeon shed.

Of course, it takes me five times as long to do as half as much, and then I have to redo a lot of work. I design as I go because I can't think very far ahead. The foundation wasn't completely square and when I decided to extend it to sixteen instead of twelve feet wide, the add-on four feet is at a bit of an angle compared to the rest. So the floor isn't completely even, but hey, it's a shed, not a pool table. I'm more concerned about keeping rain and little critters out.

With the good help of Ken, our generous neighbor, and Shari, we raised the back wall, plumbed the two side walls, and I'll be darned if it isn't pretty square and vertical.

I'm waiting for my custom door to be delivered and then I will finish the last wall and the roof. Inshallah, we will be able to vacate our storage unit by the end of this month.

Thank God we are in a dry spell of winter because all that particle board would warp and disintegrate in rain. And we do get rain here, although we've been in the eighties the last couple of days.