Building a foundation

Last year we made the decision to replace an old shed that's been on the property for decades. It was rusting and starting to cave in, and well, it was its time to go.

What a mess.

Despite its feeble appearance, it was anything but. A sturdy sucker, it took three men solid hours of work over a couple of days to bring it to the ground. Not only were its bolts rusted in place, but over the years its foundation had sunk about half a foot into the soil making it extremely difficult to detach the side panels from the submerged frame. That meant a lot of brute force and one huge pry bar were necessary. Okay, and some swearing. But only a bit.

To avoid a similar fate, Spence and I decided to put everything we learned last year to good use and build a foundation for our new shed. Luckily Sunday was a perfect sunny spring day so we celebrated by rolling up our sleeves and getting to work.

We learned a couple good lessons along the way (like when you're measuring for joist positioning, you start on the outside of the first one, not the inside). Also, it might be wise to wait until the frost is completely out of the ground otherwise you're going to spend a couple hours chipping away at piles of frozen logs and soil that the previous owner left piled behind the old shed. Y'know. There's that.

Overall, though, I'm happy to report it was a smooth, injury-free process! By mid-day,we'd figured out a system that kept everything running smoothly. I brought the raw materials to the saw bench, measured, and marked them. Spence cut each piece, carried it to the foundation and installed it while we both held it in place.

We put the final piece of subfloor plywood down just in time to pack up and hit the road at our usual time. Success!

Building material

Making everything square and level