Backyard House project

My friend the wonderful botanical artist Sigrid Frensen sent me this link...great ideas here, too!  Repurposed materials, wonderful lighting...

Check out the slideshow and all the marvelous, quirky ideas HERE:
http://www.riseoverrun.biz/the-backyard-house.html

Sunset Magazine's terrific sheds collection...

One of my favorites from Sunset's site...but who can pick??

http://www.sunset.com/home/outdoor-living/great-backyard-sheds-and-cottages-00400000058405/page22.html

Trust Sunset to have a bunch of great ideas...

Serious Progress Preparing for Winter

AT LAST!  All of the rigid foam insulation had let go and fallen to the ground under the shed...as noted before, the adhesive needs to be pressed into place and then the foam pulled free so it will off-gas, then pushed back into place.  Who knew?  So I watched as each piece let go and gave me a refrigerated floor!  I was GOING to get it fixed before another winter, whatever it took.

So hooray, Mark and Zach were free, and arrived yesterday to get us fixed up!

This is the old stuff, all out from under the shed now...you can see the glue spots that let go.  There wasn't a bit of it still on the floor where it belonged.  Somehow it didn't warm the floor much once it was all lying on the ground...

We decided to replace some of it with the 2" stuff, and double up the old...

They didn't have long enough nails with the plastic washers, so here's Mark replacing the nails with screws...Zach couldn't have swung a hammer under there anyway!

Finishing up along the west edge...Zach crawled under for most of it...

You can see some of the little fasteners here--more dependable than the glue, I hope!  And you can tell how little clearance there was...

Mark's squeezing the last bit into place...Zach's underneath guiding it in.

If I had REMEMBERED I'd owned this book since the late 80's, I could have saved us ALL a bit of trouble.  Or a lot.  It's still out there on Amazon, as you can see at the link!

A Place of Your Own Making: How to Build a One-Room Cabin, Studio, Shack, or Shed

Soooo...let this be a lesson to you if you're wanting to build your own place...nails in the floor joists BEFORE you put down the floor, at the depth of the styrofoam, as you may be able to see above. Rest it ON the nails. THEN cover.

Voila', an insulated floor that stays put! (A vapor barrier between the insulation and the sub-floor--or floor, as it turned out to be for us!--is good, too. Duh...)

So looking forward to a warmer winter and a lower electric bill!

A different view of the shed...

Looking over the fence...I'm still trying to figure out if I want to add an overhang over that door, so I don't have to fumble with locking and unlocking when it rains or snows!  I don't want it to look cheesey, or like an afterthought (even if it is!)...more integral.  So...thinking...

It HAS been a while...

I'm loving the shed as much as ever, and tweaking here and there as we go along...we have MORE birdfeeders, and the little creatures seem to especially love raw peanuts and black oil sunflowers.   These titmice are sharing a dinner...

Lots of little downy woodpeckers, too...

Yep, another one...

Sparrows feed on the ground, on the feeders, at the suet...omnivorous!

The wildflowers are almost gone...these have puffy seed heads now instead of flowers.

Some of the trees have changed, but the soft maples are still mostly green...with lovely red stems!  This was taken with my new Canon camera, with the zoom function, way overhead.  Cool...

The damp wood by the door appears to FINALLY be dry, and I gave it two more coats of spar varnish...hopefully that will protect it over the winter...and we're looking to get the insulation under the floor fixed THIS WEEK.

I've shot a number of videos and painted a lot, in and around the shed...it's quiet, no phones, and a good place to work, still...

This one's down the alley, just beginning to look like fall...