My brother and I have decided that close not only counts in horseshoes
and hand grenades, but that it also counts in regard to framing. Especially
when it comes to sheds. Granted, lots of guys are precise to about an eighth of
an inch. My brother is far more picky, so a job done in the slovenly midlander
fashion for him is about par for the rest of the world.
We started in the morning pretty early. I don’t know what it
is about Idaho weather, but as soon as one thinks about installing a roof, it
will rain. It did that day, but only briefly, as if to say, “Ha ha hurl.” Anyway,
the first truss is the most important because everything else depends on it for
layout, plumb, and square; and also because of global warming. As such,
naturally, you’ll want to consult your guidebook of sailormouth expletives
because the first truss will also probably be a cast iron Mongolian cluster
flock. It wasn’t so bad. It only took about an hour to fix all the mistakes I
had made on the walls that translated quite logically into the roof. See, this
is why I have help. And he pays off in cheap beers, which is even better.
It wasn’t long before we had installed two or three of the
trusses, and things were going right along. Note the bracing. The tails of the
trusses were allowed to run “wild.” We would cut them off later. Twice. Really.
You’ll notice at some point in the perusal of these images that the roof has a
certain asymmetrical stance to it. This is one hundred percent intentional and
not in any way the result of a mistake of any kind by anyone involved on the
job. It is also not similar to an episode of ancient history involving two men,
one of whom was helping with this roof, who at one point were replacing the
starter on my old Euro-Ford whilst drinking beer and then proceeded to catch
the car on fire.
Adding to the hilarity and all around enjoyable nature of
the day, we had “help” from two small children who happened to be walking by
and spontaneously began climbing ladders, brandishing hammers and saws, and
mostly saying, “Hey dad! Watch this!” So we had no excuse, therefore, to not
build the best damn shed roof you ever saw.
We eventually built ourselves right out of materials and had
to run to Home Depot, where we parked in the PRO CUSTOMER parking, which I
think is self-explanatory, obviously. We brought home a bag of H clips (which
are officially called something else in order to be as confusing as possible),
some tiko nails, and lots of sheathing. Either my neighbors love me and prefer
generosity, or I have angered them and provoked them to rummaging around in
their spare parts bin and giving me various tidbits to hurry the project along.
I prefer to think it’s the former, with gifts like this. My Dutch neighbor from
across the street gave me this gable end vent, which is precisely what I need
in order to make the winter season cigar ventilation device work properly. More
on that some other time.
Once all the trusses were set, we had lunch. There was some
homemade lasagna from the night before. It tasted even better the next day. The
sauce was homemade from Italian sausage, pepperoni, crushed tomatoes, basil,
garlic, sun dried tomatoes, sherry, and salt. I never knew they had those
oven-ready lasagna noodles; boy howdy. What a time saver. I also found whole
milk ricotta and mozzarella. That really made it. But it has almost nothing to
do with building a shed, so on with the subject matter. But note the asymmetry.
Again, this has nothing to do with beer. The longer eaves on the west side will
create a safe place to hang my rakes and shovels while also keeping them handy.
It’s intentional. I told my brother, “My wife will hate it. But I love it
because it’s just slightly eccentric. Make it so.”
We started nailing the sheathing down after lunch. We let
the ends run wild because, after we determined the length of the overhang for
the gables (we’re basically freehanding this; there are no plans), we would
only have to make one cut. Smart! Even with beer. The H clips install on the
top edge of the sheathing in between the trusses, adding strength, and for
cheap. They serve to tie the sheathing together top to bottom on their
horizontal edge.
After what felt like a wrestling match with a cougar (not
the sultry sophisticated kind), we were pretty much done. The incredulous look
my brother had given me at the beginning of the day, when he had discovered
that I had built the trusses to an 8/12 pitch, was now understandable. My body
hurt from fingertip to toenail. As a matter of fact, I can still feel it, and
it’s not nice. But we did good work, and I’m proud of it. Now I can fill in my
gable ends and complete some of the framing on the inside (for finish work like
sheetrock). I can do that all by myself. Which probably means it will be
asymmetrical, and that will be intentional. Duh.
