Sunday, January 23, 2011

So the question of the day is:



How hard can it be to assemble a store-bought shed? Now, the answer most folks would use is "Not at all". I am here to tell you that this is the furthest thing from the truth. Here's the story:

A friend of mine, Phill, who has recently (About a year ago) moved to FL is a motorcycle junkie. He repairs, rebuilds, constructs and, most likely, makes love to motorcycles. I just recently bought my first motorcycle with the aid of Mr. Phill. It is an older bike with a little work to be done on it. The plan was for him to help me rebuild the bike to working order.

Phill decided to move from his residence to a smaller apartment complex. This complex does not provide a cohesive environment for working on bikes. So, Phill came to me about a month ago looking for advice as to where he should store his motorcycle and parts, etc. Seeing as Phill and I are pretty close, I offered my backyard as a place he could store his parts until he is able to rebuild his bike or find a storage unit. Here's where the story gets interesting.

Having not been in FL long, Phill is not used to the in-climate weather that this state has to offer, and does not feel comfortable storing his treasured cycle parts in my open backyard...completely understandable. So he has the great idea of buying a shed to put in my yard that will protect his bike(plus for him), and when he is done building his latest bike, I get to keep the shed (plus for me). I agree with Phill that this is an excellent idea. So he buys a high-quality, aluminum-frame shed, brings it to my house, and we make plans to construct it on his day off of work.

Phill arrives at my home yesterday morning and we open the box to begin our macho adventure of building a shed. Power tools in hand, we open the box and begin reading the directions. Now keep in mind that Phill and I are healthy young men with a pretty solid understanding of construction, home repair and engines. We assume this is going to be a 2-3 hour build and a piece of cake.....

The above picture (though blurry) is a sign of what was to come. The warning contained within the instructions reads as follows "The remainder of the building assembly requires MANY hours and more than one person...". We get a good hearty laugh from this warning. The whole time we're working on separating the parts, checking that we have all the necessary screws etc, Phill and I are exchanging smartass remarks regarding the "MANY hours" of shed building we would be in store for. After the 4th hour of manly shed building that was taking place in my back yard, the jokes seemed to dissipate. I would like to extend my deepest condolences to anyone who buys one of these specific sheds henceforth.

In the end, it took 2 young, virile men eleven solid hours, over the course of two days, to construct an 8'x10' aluminum shed. After screwing over 150 screws, lifting a few hundreds pounds of metal, weather-stripping, ladder climbing, putting parts on upside-down backwards and inside-out and having to replace them, and everything else that could go wrong going wrong, we were done. Although the finished product is high-quality, sturdy, and just plain handsome, I refuse to ever undergo a project such as this one. Next time, I will hire a company for any shed building in my future.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

........

So I'm a slacker. I haven't posted anything in the better part of 6 months. :( This is going to change...hopefully. So, completely off topic, I've ventured into the world of html. Pretty neat stuff. I never would have realized there was so much involved in making a website(not me, apparently. otherwise i wouldn't have said that). I'm in the process of putting my first site together in hopes of making some supplemental income. We shall see where this takes us.