Andrew's View of the Week

Wednesday – Demolition Done

Posted on 05/25/2022 by Andrew Reynolds

and so is my back. What a lot of work, but it’s done. Here’s the pictures:

A pile of 2x4s waiting to have nails taken out.

Once the siding was off, it was easy to knock the walls over. The harder part was going through removing nails and stacking the wood out of the way. Most of the wood was 8 foot lengths, but there was some smaller and a few 10 foot sticks.

Just to show how many nails there were, look at that picture – two full one gallon milk containers of nails.

This is a picture of the tools I used to bring the shed down:

The crow bar is a great tool for general prying things apart and pulling nails.
The black flat bar is one of my favorite demo tools. It pries, pulls nails, scrapes and make a satisfying ringing sound when dropped.
The hammer or as I like to call, a persuader as it persuades things to move to new places.
Screw driver for the few screws I found
The blue handled channel locks are good for removing stubborn screws and helps with more difficult nail removal.
The vice grips are for really, really stubborn screws and broken nails.
Gloves – I actually wore out one pair of gloves on this job.
Magnet on a string for when nails roll into awkward places.
Tea cup for morning break.
Water bottle – have to stay hydrated.

and finally, some of the personal protect stuff – safety glasses, gloves and a really big hat. The sun at this altitude can be intense.

Tomorrow the new shed arrives and then I can start on building new things. Until then, if you need me, I’ll be collapsed in a corner.

Posted in woodworking | Tagged shed demolition, woodworking | 28 Comments

Sunday Demolition

Posted on 05/22/2022 by Andrew Reynolds

Here is my progress on the shed demolition. The roof is off and the sheathing is starting to come off. I’ve got three more days to finish clearing this site. If my back holds out, I’ll have pictures of our new shed next week.

The tricky part of removing a roof is to make sure you’re not standing under it when it falls down. I removed shingles and roof sheathing before touching the rafters. The rafters where removed one at a time while I was outside the shed. The trick was to remove the rafters in the right order so that the last two or three would fall into the shed and not on me. It took three days of work to get it to this stage.

The pile of wood in the shed are the rafters. Each still had nails so the next step was removing those and stacking the wood out of the way.

Here you can see the stud wall and inside piles of shingles and other junk that I just threw in here. That needs to be cleaned out and the rest of the sheathing removed. The wall framing will actually come down fast and I expect that the big thing this week is site cleanup and making sure the shed building crew has a clear path to the site with the needed electrical connection.

That’s it for this week on the shed. I’ll have more stuff next week, but if you need me, I’ll be in the shed.

Posted in woodworking | Tagged building a garden shed, shed removal, woodworking | 18 Comments

Friday Wisdom – Building

Posted on 05/20/2022 by Andrew Reynolds

I’ve been pulling down a garden shed all week and I’ve been learning a lot about how things are built so here’s everything I know about building:

Some construction sites have birds – cranes mostly.

We had to fire our roofer. He wouldn’t stop eavesdropping.

I tried to write a joke about construction, but it had no build-up.

High steel workers love their job, it’s riveting.

Most people are shocked when the learn how bad an electrician I am.

Our plumber said he doesn’t work on clogged sinks anymore. He said it was too draining.

The tallest possible buildings are libraries because they have so many stories.

I never tell window jokes, I wouldn’t want one to crack up.

Once I went to a party with a bunch of construction workers. I tell you, those guys know how to raise the roof.

The police arrested a construction worker, but they had to let him go because there was no concrete evidence.

Here in the high Sierra there are two seasons: winter and road construction.

I was looking at all my construction tools and I still think the shovel is the most groundbreaking.

My supper power is that I can cut wood in half by just looking at it. Yes, I saw it with my own eyes.

Awhile ago I got a job in construction but I just wasn’t strong enough so I had to give my too weak notice.

Posted in wisdom | Tagged construction jokes, humor, wisdom | 24 Comments

Monday Working – Shed

Posted on 05/16/2022 by Andrew Reynolds

We’ve got a major project with a tight timeline going here in the garden. We’ve decided to replace the garden shed with a new one. The shed is likely twenty years old and is starting to have serious problems – the roof is rotting at the edges, the siding has water damage and is pulling away from the frame, the concrete slab slopes wrong and water floods inside when it rains … The list goes on and on. I had thought about repairing it, but that would take a lot of time and money. The other option is to replace it. Turns out we can buy a prefabbed garden shed that is better and cheeper that one I could build myself.

So Heather and I did the on-line design thing for the shed company and after a lot of thought we came up with a configuration we liked. I was thinking it would take the company a few months to build and deliver it, but no – it arrives a week from Thursday. That’s part good and part bad. Good because it will give me all summer to add shelves, potting benches and cool stuff. Bad because I have to demolish the old shed and clear the site before it arrives. I’ve decided to take the old shed apart carefully so I can save and reuse as much of the wood and other materials as I can. That takes time – a lot of time.

In fact, so much time that I’ll be skipping writing my Sunday posts for a couple of weeks. I’ll post a few pictures of project progress starting with these:

The old shed with some of the trim removed

Most of the stuff around the shed used to be in the shed – we had a lot of stuff in there.

Took a couple of days to get the inside cleaned out and the electrical wiring removed.

I’ve focused on clearing out the inside and removing shelving, hooks, the bench and wiring for the lighting.

Just a picture so I know how to reconnect this thing later.

One of the drip irrigation controllers is in this shed so that had to be temporarily relocated. I took this picture to document how it was wired up – could be a bad day if I reconnect it wrong.

That’s it for this week and until I finish this fun project.

If you need me, I’ll be in the shed.