I Made a Thing! (AKA where did the 'DIY projects' thread go?)

[DaveC426913]

Anyway, I made a thing! A Christmas present to myself.

When we moved here in June, this was just a janky roof on two janky posts hanging off the shed-proper. Now it's a whole 'nother room - lighted, heated, weather-proofed, air-circulated, child-proofed and usable all year round, and all my tools are protected from drifting snow. (The window panels are actually leftover sliding doors repurposed, that can be removed in the summer for air circ.)

See the door-and-a-half? And it has a little trap door at bench-height on the far left where I can stick 2x4x8 lumber out and can still cut it on my chop saw.

This is the fist time in my life I've had an actual workshed where I can do stuff and not have to pack all my tools away when I'm done (which was a real buzz-kill).

(P.S. the pic makes it look like cedar, but it's actually all PT. I tried to do this on a budget.)

I rate this project 10/10. (Defined as: I started with ten fingers and still have ten left!)

Took me 2-3 weeks. Cost maybe $500, mostly in lumber, and much of that was just to shim up all the janky lines.

Next summer: dedicated power, so I don't have to power everything by extension cables from the house.

Now in my fifties, I'm discovering that my spirit animal is wood. And my talisman is a chopsaw.

 

[berkeman]

Very nice! Looks great, Dave.

 

[DaveE]

Yes 10/10!!! good work!

I still suffer from the problem of 10Lbs of tools in a 5Lb workshop. It's like a 3D Tetris game getting anything big done.

 

[DaveC426913]

It's like a 3D Tetris game getting anything big done.

Indeed. The irony was not lost on me that the project I was working on - in my 10x10 work shed - was trying to build a 10x10 work shed. ("Why is every board I try to cut just a little too long to fit in my ... ohhh right.")

 

[JT Smith]

When we moved here in June, this was just a janky roof on two janky posts hanging off the shed-proper. Now it's a whole 'nother room - lighted, heated, weather-proofed, air-circulated, child-proofed and usable all year round, and all my tools are protected from drifting snow. (The window panels are actually leftover sliding doors repurposed, that can be removed in the summer for air circ.)

It looks great! A very nicely done mojo dojo casa house.

 

[Lnewqban]

 

[DaveC426913]

View attachment 337694

Yeah. So I inherited this janky lean-to whose 4x4 uprights are off by several degrees. They're securely buried in the ground and I didn't feel like tearing them out and putting in new corner posts from scratch (especially in winter). So I kept the existing posts and bullied them into a nigh-plumb state.

But now they don't line up to support the roof end joist (or is it stringer?). So I had to gang a short 4x4 to support the existing corner 4x4. That's what you're seeing.

The structure is generally over-built anyway, with most of the original structure being surrounded by more of my own lumber in an attempt to square everything up (including the highlighted corner).

The front right 4x4 - while you can't see it from the pic, is in actuality about 4x6 inches thick at the top - and about 4x8 inches at the bottom - because of all the supplementary lumber I've added.

 

[DaveC426913]

Oh. Are you thinking the tree branch is the reason for the little add-on? No. The tree is actually several feet away.

 

[Lnewqban]

Oh. Are you thinking the tree branch is the reason for the little add-on? No. The tree is actually several feet away.

No, I was only wondering about that solution, which you have explained above.
Thanks!