The Shed

So, you need a little extra storage space outside. You think, "Hey, one of those 10x8 metal sheds would be perfect, they don't cost a lot either!"

You purchase the shed and wrestle it home, still thinking this is going to be a great project.

You happily level the ground for the shed's home and build a good solid foundation for it out of some nice pressure treated lumber and exterior plywood.

You then start to build the shed. Four hours into the process you regret every decision you made up to that point.

My wife and I are going to be tearing down our garage to build a new one. We needed somewhere to store our outside stuff while this was going on and we settled on a metal Arrow 10x8 shed.

It looks a lot like this:

I read some reviews online about the sheds and it seemed they were fairly sturdy and not overly hard to build, it just takes time.

Well, yes, it does take time. A whole lot of time. And it takes a lot of twisting of a screwdriver, a WHOLE lot of twisting of a screwdriver.

I started working on the shed at about 10:00 in the morning. I began putting the base together after wrestling the pieces outside. Things moved fairly smoothly at this point. My wife got home from the gym and came out to help. It was only about 12:45 when we got to the point in the instructions that should have tipped us off: "Do not continue past this point unless you have many hours to finish the job."

PFFFFFFT. How hard could it be? It wasn't even 1 yet. We forged ahead. By the 100th tiny screw you have to install I was starting to regret our decision on purchasing the shed.

The problem wasn't so much the screws, or the bolts, or the washers, its that there are about 500 or so of them all told. Oh, and you can't really use a drill to install them as they are tiny and you often have to fight to line up the holes so they'll go together. And they're tiny.

We forged ahead, our decisions getting worse and our speed slowing as time drug on. Mistakes were made. (What are the chances of installing all three roof braces upside down? Getting better all the time!) Tempers flared as we both tired.

Finally around 7 we finished. Oh, we weren't done. No no no! We merely got to a point where we could stop and it wouldn't fall down or blow away overnight.

Today I spent another 5 hours finishing it up.

It was a horrible process but a great learning experience. Next time I'll either just build a shed from scratch with lumber or buy a pre-fab'd shed and have it dropped in place. Either option will be superior to installing a million little screws one at a time with their little washers and GAH!!!!!

On the positive side it seems fairly sturdy and since it's been raining all day there appear to be no leaks in the roof.

All told it has about 40 combined man-hours of work in it though I'd say 3 of that was just due to general tiredness the first day.

Here it sits. Lurking.