Also I had some water damage along the back that I addressed. Dug it out, replaced rotted sheathing, and layed in some drainage gravel.

Since then I installed the rear gable vent , measured ,cut ,and primed some trim, put up fanfold water barrier and some siding on the back. Also decided to put up a lean-to on the back to get the lumber and sheet goods out of the way. Going forward I will be using up a lot of the extras in various projects but the goal is
to not clutter up the shop or the lot with an eyesore of extra lumber. Also it will provide dry storage.

The weather went from really dry and nice to cold and rainy. So a slight delay, but I should be able to
resume work this afternoon .

I’m still constructing the pallet frame for the lean-to but should have that done by tomorrow if I get motivated.

A few pictures of my progress.

Currently am in the process of taking down the old siding and applying a fanfold moisture barrier on the sheathing . The old siding is being replaced with new siding sheets that will run down the entire wall to within a few inches of the ground. The old siding will be reused on a lumber storage lean-to, which is to be build in the future. ASAP.

Why am I replacing the siding ? The old siding stopped short about 10 inches from the bottom. A 2×10 framed out the bottom all the way around the shed. These 2×10s weren’t mitered or beveled on the top to drain off moisture, nor were they sealed to prevent moisture from draining and wicking in behind them.

As the pictures show , water damage is evident. Rotting was minimal and decided to let it dry out and decide whether to cut out the bottom 10 inches and replace. The white that is showing is Kilz that bled onto the wall from the 2×10 trim boards.

Decided to dig out the soil down to and under the joist and get the soil away from as much of it as possible and will back-fill it with compactable gravel and finish with #8 crushed limestone gravel hopefully tomorrow.

I actually dug the trench you see deeper and exposed the side and underneath the beam. Just didn’t take a pic.

Just a few days ago did a dry fit of the siding on the north side you see below. I used strips of fanfold as “furring” to create an airspace/drain channel under the siding.

Noticed today some of the furring is coming loose. Will need to use bigger staples. Also got the soffitts on this side installed. They are secured but not quite done.

The soffitt trim also dry fitted, has some nails showing that will eventually be hidden with a larger drip edge, and apron, and gutters.

Admittedly this is all new to me so while I’m taking my time, its far from perfect. :) The learning process has been invaluable.

This is the north facing wall. Maybe next year I will put in a few small windows. Thats up in the air as space will be limiting as it is.

This is the side I just got the siding and soffitts sort of dry fitted . I will be trenching the bottom like the back and backfilling with gravel to increase the drainage around the shed.

As I posted yesterday, things are in a state of chaos again ! I am reluctant to post pics of this chaos, but here goes.

P.S. I would like to say I have “after” pics. But that hasn’t happened yet. This is the current and present chaos I’m dealing with. Tomorrow maybe, I will move stuff around again for the dozenth time.

There is a shop in there someplace.

A few misc pics .

One thing creating some grief is the lumber and stuff that is taking up all the room in my shop. I kept my construction lumber surplus on racks outside , on one side of the shop. I kept it tarped to keep it relatively dry. Before I could do the soffits and siding on that side of the building, I had to take all of that lumber down.

I would be needing some of this lumber in the short term so I put it all inside the shop and some in a pile tarped over outside.

It quickly filled the shop and took up most of the room . Can’t even get to one end of the shop. I figured it would be okay for a few weeks until I get the siding and trim up on the outside. But its just taking up too much room and I find myself needing stuff thats located at that end of the shop of course. Then I have to move stuff around and it can sometimes take 10 minutes or longer to shift things around .

Okay, enough complaining. The last two days have been nice weather-wise. Yesterday I took down the old siding and put up the rest of the fanfold underlayment . Ran out so I had to make a trip to pick up another bundle . Also need some more aluminum soffit trim and j-channel.

So today I got the soffits up on the other side of the shed and removed a 2×10 bottom trim board. Moisture had leached through and behind the trim board and a little rot was evident on the ply sheathing near the bottom .

These trim boards won’t be going back on. They trap to much moisture behind them and add little in the way of appeal or function. I cleaned up good behind them and will dig out the ground there underneath and put in some gravel. Seems there is moisture not draining from the top of the ground there.

Tomorrow I will finish putting up the fanfold and run out for some Smart Panels to side withl. I will need longer pieces to run down to within about 4 inches of the ground. The old panels were cut short and seated to the top
of the 2×10 trim boards.

After reading up on drain channels and the like. I will be adding an additional (three or four ) 4” wide pieces of fanfold vertically that run the entire length top to bottom on top of the fanfold. This will create an airspace between the underlayment and the sheets of siding. This space wil provide a channel for moisture to weep away.
Keep away termites and other moisture related problems.

The siding I’m using are the SmartSide composite siding sold in the 4×8 sheets. These seem to hold up well to the elements . They are also relatively inexpensive and easy to put up.

I may be getting a new table saw if all goes as planned. Going out tomorrow to look at a Ridgid
3560.

The shop was a mess and I mean a mess. I’m dealing with a lot of construction grade lumber
left over from the expansion and its really a pain trying to keep it in the shop out of the
weather. Cutoffs, pieces of sheet ply, 2x lumber,etc.

So I spent 4 or 5 hours out there today cleaning up and moving lumber around (again), to
make sure I will have a spot for the saw if I in fact get it.

I also had a bunch of fiberglass insulation I had to sort through. Had it bagged in some construction
grade garbage bags. Some of it got wet and ruined anyway.

Most however was salvagable and I installed it the wall cavities of one wall. That eliminated
3 large construction garbage bags from the mess in the shop. Then I moved and seperated as best I
could all the sheet and board lumber . Put all the cutoffs into some garbage cans for storage ,swept and
tidyed up and called it a day.

I did have a temporary lumber rack of sorts along the outside of one wall of the shop. Basically
a few fence posts spread about 6 feet apart with some heavy duty brackets to hold the lumber.

This worked ok as a temporary solution . I covered it with a tarp. The lumber tended to get wet anyway.

I took all of that racked lumber down and moved it to a pile on the ground out back supported by some landscaping brick and tarped it.

The plan is to build a long “lean to” addition to the side of the shop to store dimensional lumber and a DC system
when I get one.

In the coming days I will finish siding the shed and I need to install soffits on one side yet. Then I will start on phase II of the expansion.

Phase II will involve marrying a smaller shed to the exiting shop to give me a much needed 50 extra sq. feet of space. Doesn’t sound like a lot but it will definitely make a big difference.

If I get the saw I will post pics of it . In the next installment of this series I will hopefully have the siding on and the soffits up. I will post pics of that also . As well, I will post pics of the before and after when I marry the little shed up against the shop.

I will have to literally slide the shed back about a foot and raise the roof to increase head-room.

My first few projects after the expansion will be to put all of that extra lumber to good use building
shop cabinets and the like.

Well thats about all I have for now. Till next time !

If its not too bad I will try to finish up the underlayment. And also try to get the soffits
completed on one side at least.

The only other time I did soffits I just used ply. This time I decided to
give the shed a cleaner and more professional look by buying
vinyl soffit panels, j-channel, and aluminum 6” facisa trim.

I watched a good tutorial on youtube on installing soffits and facsia boards but
it still took a little time for me to get the J-channel positioned right and
get the over-all hang of it.

Also the drip-edge didn’t have enough of a lip to catch the upper indent of the
fasicia and still have room to wedge the soffit panels into the bottom of the
fascia.

So this meant another run to HD to pick up wider drip-edge.

A little frustrated I didn’t get as early of a start as I would of liked. But
turned on the lights and worked on it till after 10 pm tonight.

Tomorrow weather permitting I should be able to fly through the soffits.

Can’t wait to get those done. Its about the only keeping me from putting
insulation in.

Still have some trim work and a little underlayment around the gable
end .

I had most of the roof shingled by Christmas and only needed another bundle to finish it up. Had some snow and
cold stormy weather from Christmas day and for about a week after. But as soon as things cleared up I finished the roof about a week ago.

Then I started to put in the collar ties . Only got a few up and then I took a break and have stayed inside and
tried to catch up on some house-cleaning chores that I had gotten behind on.

Getting some mild weather again, so today I went out to the shed and just cleaned up and organized things
a bit. Had quite a mess out there. Usually I will try to pick up after myself ,when each day of work is done.

But in my rush to get the roof done and beat the winter storms that moved through around Christmas , I got slack with the cleaning up and I had scrap wood and tools everywhere.

So thats done, cleaned up and open to move around.And it looks like we will be getting some really mild weather over the next four or five days.

So the plan is to get an early start tomorrow and see how close I can get to putting in insulation.

My focus tomorrow will be putting in gabel studs and then collar ties along the lenth of the roof.

Was going to get a new table saw by using the HF 20% off coupon on the 31st of Dec. I was so close to going and getting it but just couldn’t pull the trigger. Want to get the shop in more of a state of completion
before I bring more stuff in. Its still pretty crowded out there at the moment.

I did order the Rockler FX router lift and assembled my Bench Dog Pro Top table. I really hope to get a lot of
use out of my router set-up as I have spent close to 700 dollars and still don’t own a single router bit yet !

Disappointing, as the weather which has been in the mid 30’s,
is going to get wintry nasty. Should’nt take long to finish shingling.
Just have about 4 or 5 courses and
the peak left to do.

Just didn’t want to climb back up there with snow. Suppose to get our first heavy snowfall tomorrow
evening I think.

Well, I tarped it over and just going to relax and enjoy Christmas day. Not far off from phase II of
the shop expansion.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone.

Put up the lookouts and the rake rafters yesterday. The rake rafters were a bit of a challenge to
figure out how to get them in place up there by myself. The solution was to nail a 2 X4 along the
rafters top edge, and to “hang” them up there over the lookouts. Then I just clamped them
there so I could nail them in place.

Can’t begin to say how useful my Irwin Quik-Grip bar clamps have been in this project. Anyone working
by themselves, they are literally like having an extra set of hands. Constantly am finding ways
to use these in carpentry work.

Today I removed the edge-drip from the front of the tool shed and proceeded to muscle up
the big sheets of ply to the roof of the extension.Thankfully, didn’t get airborne. Got them
positioned up snug to the old roof (edge to edge) and put down a few nails to keep them
in place.

Darkness came so I pulled the tarp back over and called it a day. Tomorrow I
will finish putting the ply down on top and hopefully the #15 roofing paper and see
how far I can get with the shingles.

As promised below are pics of my progress over the last week.

Yes, I have made mistakes and some of them are evident. But I do feel like I’m getting more comfortable
with the whole carpentry side of things.:)

Looking from inside to the front left and front partial walls. Decided to just deal with the side
door framing later on and framed normally. I will need to work in a header into the
front walls at some point.

No that isn’t a pretty blue sky up above. That is a tarp ! :) And the ridge beam
looking to the front rafters and the lookouts on the front left.

Looking from front to back. Those gable end studs up top
will be coming out as well as all of the rafter joists and
replaced with collar-ties. This will gain around 8-12 inches
of additional overhead room throughout !

These are the lookouts for the front overhang.Looking from the front right
outside corner, to the left front of the addition.

Didn’t get a pic of the rake rafter. Will try to get that one up on the next update.

Had all the rafters sitting pretty on their bird mouths and dry fitted nicely into their respective brackets on the ridge beam.

So I’m going over everything this morning, double checking everything before nailing the rafters down and then I saw it. Don’t know why I didn’t notice it before. Really kind of a dumb oversight.

When I cut the birds mouths on the original shed (a few years ago) I ended up cutting them really deep so they would rest over the entire length of the top plate, and then some. I don’t recall exactly why I did it that way but anyway, my addition’s rafters were setting about an inch higher on top than the rafters I did a few years ago !

Basically this meant instead of nailing everything down and purchasing ply for the roof and starting on that , I had to take down every rafter and re-cut the birds mouths so the rafters would be flush across the top with the other ones.

Oh well. Such is the life of a backyard carpenter . Ha.

This took up most of my time today. The weather forecast is calling for snow and cold after tomorrow . Have a doctors appointment tomorrow in the afternoon so need to get going early.

In the morning I will try to get the rafters nailed down and run out for the ply for the roof. Hopefully I can get the ply and roofing paper on tomorrow but that may be expecting too much. I don’t relish the idea of trying to get the roof finished in snow and cold.

I wasn’t a happy camper at all , but in times like these, I try to remain calm and collected as well as philosophical. Believe me that wasn’t easy to do at all in this case.

I have however learned a great deal about carpentry, I now feel confident that if or when, I build a structure in the future, I will know some of the pitfalls and things to expect. As well as things to avoid . The good thing is, I didn’t have to scrap any of the rafters I mis-cut .

Will try to get some updated pics up over the next few days.

That part of it is pretty much dictated by how much of the back walls I will trim off the little shed, and not much debate over whats got to be done there.

Since I am not working from a set of “formal” plans I needed to go over in my mind the side door placement and how I can best frame for this now and not have to do a lot of tearing out and re-framing when the time comes for me to actually put the door in. Might not get to that till the spring.

I made a really unforgivable mistake today

One thing about working without plans is you have to be sure of your measurements ,before you go out and purchase wood and then have it cut-down to manageable sizes. As they say measure twice,three times. And cut once.

I had (7) 2×4x12s PT lumber cut in-half thinking the stud length I needed was measured correctly and these halves would be the correct length. I was going from memory. Whoops !

Got home and found each stud was about 3 inches too short. I can still use those later for shop builds and possibly when I frame in the little shed and insulate it . Since the side of the exterior walls in there will be under 6 feet. But in reality , I wasted several hours of time in this screw-up. Grrr ! And had to make another trip and pick up another (14) 2×4x8s. I’m fuming but probably got what I deserved. Lesson learned hopefully.

So I’m taking the time tonight to have more concrete plans so i can get the walls framed in over the next day or so.

Need to step it up. Cold and snow is not far off. Need to get that roof built and covered.

But enough of that.

Today I finished putting in the ridgid insulation between the joists and then caulked all of the gaps.

I also demoed the two walls on the front of the shed.

Decided I will need to expose or have easy access to the old floor joists of the shed I’m expanding . I plan on redoing the floors in there also and if I don’t do it at this time it will be more difficult to do after I lay the ply flooring on the extension. When I put those floors in a few years ago I don’t think I used PT lumber. So when I pull up the flooring in there I will see how much if any moisture damage there is .

So I will remove a few inches off the end just so I will have room to remove those floor panels when the time comes.

So tomorrow I will lay some Reflectix over the ridgid foam and then the plywood.

A few more pics.

Demo of the front walls.

Rigid foam put in-between joists.

Got 3 done last night and finished them up today. For anyone wondering what a billet is . Its just a ledge made by screwing 1×2s into the the inside of the joist bays.

The ridgid insulation boards rest on these . Glued in place with construction adhesive.

Kind of hard to see. If you hit the control key and the (+) to zoom its easier to see the billets.

Kind of the first time I have worked with rigid foam insulation. Its not difficult to cut but it helps to have accurate cut lines for a good fit obviously. I used a small hand saw and probably should of used the saw horses and some kind of cutting guide . Some of my cuts weren’t 90 degrees and had to trim them to get them to fit.

Probably a little easier for thinner sheets and a table saw. I am working with the 2 inch sheets . R value of 13.

Anyway, a pain to put billets into every joist cavity. And a little bit of a PITA cutting and fitting the insulation.But in the end, it should be worth the extra work.

Here are photos of the billets.

I got every bay except one insulated before I ran out of construction adhesive and silicon sealant.

I will post pics tomorrow of the installed insulation.

Before I start to lay down the plywood floor I will demo out the end wall on the old shed and then proceed to framing out the addition.

So I bought some 1 by lumber and built billets on the inside of the joists to set the 2 inch insulation board on. I will use adhesive and lay the board on the billets. Any gaps I will fill with Great Stuff.

After running out to the Home Center and getting set up and figuring out exactly the best way to install, I only got billets put into 3 bays. Now that I have a method I should be able to get the other bays done tomorrow,hopefully the insulation laid in , and at least start putting the plywood floor down.

Note: It has taken me much longer than I anticipated to reach this point in the expansion but the weather is holding and I just need to start earlier in the day I guess.I usually stop working on it after it gets dark. I really don’t like to work too late and disturb the neighbors. But I’m itching to start framing the walls.

Before actual construction began I had to move a small plastic shed that was butted up against the front of my little shop. I ran two tow straps under it, hooked it up to the truck and pulled it forward.

I had previously built a new floating foundation to pull the shed onto, but as expected , I had to do some considerable leveling and jacking up and fixing things underneath. This was done over the course of a few days.

The next thing was to dig out the footprint of the expansion. This involved digging out a 5 foot x 10 foot x 6 inch deep area. All done with a shovel and small wheel barrel.

Ordered a yard of #8 limestone gravel and proceeded to backfill and level the concrete piers.

I thought a half yard would be enough. But I ended up getting two half yard deliveries. This is a half yard of gravel.

Digging out in front of the shed I’m expanding. The front beam was laying directly on the ground. I had to dig under it and expose it and backfilled with gravel and supported with piers.

Here is the foundation bed and floor beams before leveling . Just sort of a dry fitting.

Layed some poly over the gravel and built the frame beams

Put down PT 2×6’s over the beams . Started building the floor frame and getting ready to lay down Reflectix vapor barrier before I lay in the joists.

Having seen many great shop builds and shop tours, mine by comparison is not much of an undertaking.
I will be building an approxmately 50 sq. ft. extension and then tying this all in to an existing 7×8 plastic
shed that I will reinforce and insulate.

So the tool shed will go from 70 sq. ft. to around 170 sq.ft. Still pretty small, but to me,its a relatively big deal.

The current space is just too small for me . Its bursting at the seams with the modest amount of tools I
have, and next to impossible to work on projects in there without bumping into things. Not safe to work
that way either.

I have been formulating many space saving ideas. Along the way I will be incorporating some
of those into this project.Actually that may make for a blog all by itself. Anyway, I would welcome any comments
and suggestions and feel free to follow along on my little adventure.

Thanks

Ron

But we spent a half day or so in a class where we built small reproductions of our cabins. Each cabin was named after a tree species. Ours was walnut. I still have that little model. Its made out of plywood and stained. The roof lifts off and reveals a storage area inside. Guess its probably over 40 years old . Guess I was about 14 years old at the time. :0)

The window frames are grooved and are actually designed to put photographs in . I sort of forgot I still had this thing floating around. It has gotten a bit damaged over time but still is in pretty good shape. Just needs to be cleaned up. It suppose it has a bit of sentimental value as I have managed to keep it all these years somehow.