The End of an Era

In 2006 we put up a metal shed to store tools and materials. It worked adequately for a good long time, but was beginning to show its age, and we were done with needing it.

I'd originally sited it where we wanted a greenhouse, but our idea of where and how we wanted to site a future greenhouse -- and what kind of foundation we wanted to use -- changed substantially in the next ten-ish years. As it happens, the deck needs to move out of the way temporarily to allow the construction to happen, into an area where the shed happens to be, so we figured it would be a good time to get the shed out of the way. We chose to do that today.

(We'll deal with the foundation some other day; it's not in anybody's way yet.)

First we emptied everything from the shed -- it was not as stuffed as it has been in years past, because we disposed of a lot of things at our big garage sale a few months ago.

Then we had to talk to the current tenants about relocation. Alameda just enacted rent control, but in the case of total demolition there is still no recourse. Also, spiders are not recognized by the courts.

Phew?

(All kidding aside, that is a Steatoda of some kind, aka False Black Widow spider. Not aggressive, bite is poisonous but not lethal to adults, and generally the spiders are very wary of human contact. We saw five of them, and two actual Black Widows (which are even more scaredy so I didn't get even a blurry photo). I am generally of the opinion that I would like to go a long time between times when I touch spiders, so I urged them to leave by making a lot of noise and getting out of their way, and they obliged me. It is good when priorities coincide like that.)

Here's the shed as we were getting started. It was really starting to get rusty, mostly because we were not repainting it regularly as one needs to do with metal sheds. And that was because we knew it was temporary when we put it up.

It actually came apart pretty easily. The panels lapped over each other so we had to do it in a specific order, but it was really just a matter of unscrewing the pieces and stacking them up.

It was a little unbearably hot, but we made good progress. Mostly it was me on the inside holding nuts in place with a pair of pliers, and Noel on the outside using the drill to unscrew the bolts, but for taller things he came in and did them.

Then we spent a bunch of time tidying it all up. Our renovation project requires a certain level of recycling, and getting rid of an all-metal shed that is fully recyclable will help out our percentages.

And the obligatory stop-motion from the back camera:

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posted by ayse on 06/05/16