And It's Done..... Almost

Red Barn is put together and filled. We still have a few things to do. Dig a trench and run power is the big one. No rush to get that done.

We started by leaning pieces up against trees to get them in the right spot.

First piece up!

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 This was out third hand. Metal shelving, that Mom used in the Red Barn at the Farm will be used in it by us. It came in handy to help brace the walls. It will hold all the helmets that need to be worn to ride the toys

 The back is complete.

 We just kept adding pieces according to Bill's numbering system.
















The roof was white originally. The weather has removed all the paint except where the panels overlapped each other. Made it easy to know how to line them up.


The roof panel got a little close to this tree. We just had to use a some elbow grease and a tiny snip to get everything in place.
















The finished project (almost). It looks as if it  has been in this spot for years. Mom painted the Sunflowers on the shed twenty years ago. She could have been the original Etsy lady.

Now it's time to add a ramp. We are gong to try all the motorized toys in here first. We will see how that works. If it doesn't; then we will move on to the next idea of what to store in here.

We put bricks under the ends of the joists to keep the boards out of the dirt. It is pressure treated lumber; even so after 10-15 years of sitting on the ground the ends would start to rot out. So a little precaution to make them last longer.



 Bill wants the water to never have a chance to sit on the wood so we put a big space between the ramp boards.

 It is wonderful!! Love that we have something else from the family farm on our land.

You can see the shelf in the back for storage. The pool stuff will go up on it. Plus all kinds of stuff I haven't told Bill about is going up there.

 All the toys fit.
Now we have some room in the garage.

Reconstruction Time

It's time to put the Red Barn, we brought from Mom and Dad's, up. It has been sitting in the front yard since summer waiting for us to have time to reconstruct.

First order of business was to clear the site. We have really thought and talked on where to put this shed. We  haven't decided what is going to be stored in it so the location was up in the air. Bill developed an infection in his intestines from his Colonoscopy so  he has been in bed not able to do anything for a few days. While he was laid up my trusty chainsaw and I went on a field trip. I did get Bill's input in where I should start cutting. Trimmed branches and cut down two trees to get a place to nestle the shed into. Cut up lots of firewood, if only we had a fireplace. After Bill was up and around he tweaked its location a bit. Maybe more than a bit. Bill turned it 45 degrees so it didn't come into the yard as much. You know, we don't have much room, only 8.5 acres to work with. And of course he was correct with the placement.

 Then it was time for bringing all the parts over to the building site.

 We kept as much together as we could when we dismantled it at the Farm. Made things awkward to move but a lot less nailing was gong to have to happen.

 Sutton was our helper on this part of the project. He got to show off his muscles when moving beams.

 Back to the front yard to load up the floor panels.

 This Grandma had to show the grand sons she could move wood right along with them.

 We had covered the floor planks but rain still got on them. The water did not  harm them structurally, but the floor will be multi colored now.

 Sutton got to drive the big 4 Wheeler to move wall panels over to the building site. He agrees that he isn't big enough to drive it by himself. He loved the power it has.

Took a little lunch break after moving the sections. Had to go into town. We have no idea what we did with the can of screws from taking the shed apart. We looked everywhere we could think of and no can to be found. Neither one of  us can remember what the can even looks like. It is probably at the farm resting under a tree waiting for us to take it with us. Off to get new screws. Now we will probably find the missing can.
 
Oh no! We took this apart the first week of August. It is now the first week of November. How do these pieces go together?

 Thank goodness Bill had a numbering system. On  the deconstruct phase he numbered and labeled everything to help in getting things back in the right place. This panel is S4, that is the 4th panel on the South wall. Sounds good, oh but the shed isn't facing the same direction. At the farm it was due East and West. On our land it is Northwest by Southeast. So, as we are putting pieces together we need to remember to change the direction.

 Floor boards are in. It is perfectly aligned. To be sure the floor is square you measure from one corner to the the diagonal corner and then the other two corners. When they measure the same your foundation is perfect. Just had to use the sledgehammer a little bit to get it lined up right. Bill would lift the joists and I got to whack the beam with the sledgehammer.

  The floor is now ready to be built on.We are adding one more step here though. I do not want critters getting under the shed and nesting. This hole is very inviting to skunks, possums, armadillos, and snakes.

To stop that from happening we skirted the whole thing with 14 inches of flashing. It goes 5-7 inches below ground level to hopefully thwart any potential dwellers. If the bright silver bothers me, we will paint it black and it will disappear. When we get around to landscaping there will be shrubs along the shed also.

I brought my rocker and lemonade out to watch Bill work; but of course he had a different idea for how I was to spend my time. I did get to sit there when he was planning out our next move.

The House That Smithbuilt - Part 2: Step 4

The House That Smithbuilt - Part 2: Step 4: One more step to getting the culvert installed. Too bad Wyatt had to go to school today I needed him to help.  I was in the back of the pick...

Step 4

One more step to getting the culvert installed. Too bad Wyatt had to go to school today I needed him to help.  I was in the back of the pickup getting ready to help Bill get the tin horn out. It is lift, scoot forward, lift, scoot froward over and over again to get it moved. A wonderful stranger stopped and asked if he could help. It was a Farrier on his way to an appointment to shoe a horse and helped Bill take the tin horn out of the truck and drop it into the ditch. People are so kind and helpful.

 Poured concrete around the joint and then raked the dirt we have around the tin horn so it won't float away. Now to wait for a delivery of sandy loam and the dirt guy to come back out.

Step 3

Still working on the new culvert. Rains are gone so we can set the joint with concrete. Wyatt mixed up the concrete for us. He didn't have any work clothes with him so he hit the pajama drawer and came up with clothes to wear. And of course my tennis shoes.

 After mixing up the concrete; his job was to build a dirt wall to hold the concrete in place. Bill and I threw dirt (the heavy work) to hold the culvert in place and Wyatt got to do the dirty work.

  His wall worked very well to hold everything in place. Wyatt got to lay on his stomach and push the concrete under the tin horn. Love having a 10 year old around so I don't have to do this stuff. Child labor is a wonderful thing.









Bill taught him how to tamp out air bubbles.

 

Now to finish the concrete. This was a skill he already knew how to do. Didn't even asked just picked up his tool and went to  work.

 Of course, after the concrete is smoothed out we have to mark it up. Wyatt put in his name, I did my handprint. Bill decided to do a nose print.

 Final step for the day is to water the dirt down. We didn't put all the dirt back in because we don't know the grade it needs to be. There will also be 2-4 inches of driveway material on top of all this. The dirt guy will have to come out again and let us know how much top soil to order in and he needs to decide on the slope.We decided it was better to do too little than too much. Do not want to have to move this dirt a third time. Part of this will be a driveway extension and the rest needs to be sloped for easy mowing. We haven't added the second tin horn yet either.

Wyatt learned how moldable our clay soil is. He is trying his hand at Claymation. He made clay men.

Step Two

This culvert project is going to be a multi step endeavor. First step was Darrick and I cleaning out the existing culvert. Nothing will be as difficult as that. Thank goodness or I would put a stop to this madness and figure something else out. Today we needed to get a 24 foot extension added to the existing culvert before the rains come and destroy the work we have done so far.

Step Two A;

First thing to do was to address the hole at the inlet side of the culvert. The tin horn opening is below soil level so if we just left it the culvert would fill up with dirt again. I will NOT do the job of cleaning that thing out  again. Bill had dug down and made this hole a month ago, I just needed to make it deeper and clean it out.

 When the dirt guy cut the ditch he found all kinds of concrete chunks. Some too big to move and small smaller ones.

 They are perfect for lining the hole.First thing I did was lay a solid piece on the bottom of the hole then stacked small pieces around the sides. Between the concrete pieces and the dirt I laid landscape fabric to hold the dirt back from filtering into the tin horn but water flows through it.

 After the rains move through we will pour some soupy concrete behind these pieces and it will serve its purpose. We will have a very nice storm drain.

 Step Two B:

First thing is for Bill and Darrick to use the transom and get our drop. Shane, the dirt guy, gave us a very good nine inch drop from drive to end of ditch. Now we just need to keep this. We were very surprised how well the water took away all the dirt we pulled out of the compacted culvert. There was just a little bit of dirt that needed to be smoothed out.

 Bill then went three miles down the road and picked up our new 24 foot tin horn. He only has a six foot bed, but then added this really cool thing we have that adds about three feet of support past the tail gate. Still, over half the tin horn is hanging off the back of the truck.

 Bill and I pulled it off the truck and rolled it into the ditch. We then had to pick it up and push it down to where it needed to be. It was a slow process but not too bad.

No, I am not relaxing. There was a hump of dirt that needed to be shaved off so the end of the new would line up with the end of the old. I  would push it to the side with my legs and Bill would shave the dirt.

 It's in! It still has a good drop so the water will flow out of it beautifully. I think we have decided to add another 24 foot section at the end to make mowing easier.  If we shaped and leveled at the end it would be too steep for the mower.

 At the joint we will be pouring concrete to seal the ends together. But, heavy rains with possible flooding will be here this afternoon so we can't pour concrete. We just used a Zip Tape for now. Hopefully, it will hold up until we can get this finished.

 Just in time; the rain clouds are coming our way.

Dirty Jobs

Need to call Mark Rowe with Dirty Jobs. 

One of the things worked on while we were gone was our front culvert. The north end of the culvert was underground. You can just imagine how much water was going through it. That's right; none. It was just flowing up and around our drive. This causied issues during this past Springs torrential rains.
 Here you can see how far underground the end of the culvert was.

 This is the south end. It was at least exposed on the top so we knew there was a culvert.

  Brynnlee was in charge of hauling all the tools out to the road.

This is what the culvert looked like. Completely compacted with dirt. We have a boring tool that I used for this  job. You use it if you need to go under concrete to lay pipe or anything. It is a 10 foot piece of PVC with a nozzle on the end. You hook it up to your garden hose and the nozzle on the end turns the water into a high power jet. It cuts a hole in the dirt. Then  the water helps move stuff out.

 Darrick came and helped with this job.

This is what we had to do to pull the dirt out that the tool had loosened.  Crawl in as far as we could with the hoe and pull mud and rock and trash out with us.

Then the boys came and crawled in to help pull dirt out.

 He's going in!! Wyatt went in with no holds barred. Wasn't quite strong enough to cut through the root ball we found.

But, he did have fun. I got completely covered with mud he was able to stay up on his elbows and keep out of the flowing water and mud.

The girls loved the muddy creek we made with all the water we pumped through that culvert. Really glad we don't have to pay for water.   

 

 This was truly a family affair.

Success!!!! Sunlight and it only took 6 hours. There is a root ball right smack in the middle that I am hoping the rains coming in the end of the week will wash out. If not I will need to crawl all the way in and cut it out. Ughh.