K and I set out to conquer the world after talking with Jerry, the Shed Erection expert at Rubbermaid. After hearing that yes, the floor is level and yes, the walls are in square, the expert suggested that we connect the first and second panel together and lock them while still on the ground —and then install them together at the same time. Well, okay, but that makes the duo-panel quite heavy. But we did exactly what we were told, and we muscled it on up the ladder, and with K on the outside and me on the inside we got it up to where it should slide right into the groove of the roof beam and snap down in place . . . and it didn't work!
After trying this for a good half hour, our neighbor Richard (who is a thinker as well as good on ladders and strong) came over to lend a hand. And he was an enormous help, indeed. Richard was so strong that when he and K shoved the double panel up into the groove the walls of the shed came apart! So we decided that maybe doing them one at a time would be better, since the double panel was just not going to snap in place. After quite a bit of effort, the three of us managed to get the three left side panels up, one at a time, and snapped down in place! Victory!
Now for the other side. The first panel went up just fine . . . then that d--n second panel was a bear, once again!
After another half hour of trying this way and that way, Richard thought maybe we should file down the corner of the panel giving us such a hard time . . . that didn't work. Then Richard suggested that we get his son, Ben, to help. Now Ben is a short fellow and very limber, and extremely strong (and under 30 years old)! He is an analytical thinker . . . which really helped in this project because these panels had to fit just right and he was able to figured out how to make them do that.By contorting his body and giving a yank here and there, the panels all snapped into place—but the roof extended over by 1/4" on one end of the shed. Richard tried to adjust it, but it took young Ben, with a rubber mallet and some hefty muscle, to whack at the three roof panels and he was able to get them all to slide, in tack, 1/4" so that the roof would snap onto the walls of the shed.
It's a great shed, especially for Camp Cascadia in Oregon. It will weather well up here, we won't have to paint it, it won't leak, and it won't mildew —but we decided we'd not try it again. We're just not as young and as strong as we used to be . . . well, duh!We couldn't have done this project without our great neighbors offering their help, that's for sure. We were at our wits end. But now the shed is up and we'll be able to go on with the rest of our reorganizing project!
Life is good!
3 comments:
Well I'm so glad to hear that help was on its way. It looks great...but aren't you sure you don't want to move it two feet to the left. I think it might work better there.. jk :)
Yeah right, jennavar! That baby isn't moving in a million years! Maybe your grandchildren can move it in the future.
Yeay...I can finally post to your site. For some reason I couldn't see the word verification but finally here I am.
The shed looks great!! It's almost like you just wanted to hire the guys from rubermade to put it in themselves (since they know everything)...lol
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