Our newest project is intended to serve a couple purposes. Zach is building a storage/work shed in our backyard and I've affectionately nicknamed it "Zach's Shack." Number one, it's for storage... lots of tools, materials and all those fun things filling up the garage will soon be in the Shack (yay!). Number two, it's a new work space for Zach... more space for more projects. Number three, it's going to have a porch... where I've already decided there will be some bright colored Adirondack chairs and probably (okay, honestly pretty positively) some more potted plants (shhh, don't tell Zach - it's supposed to be a manly shack for all things manly). I also want there to be a hammock, another flower bed, a firepit and picnic table in the general vicinity of the shack's porch - but we can discuss that more later. Any who, we're both pretty excited about it (for different reasons, obviously) and it's coming along nicely!

We've been talking about the backyard shed basically since we bought the house, but we got a little kick start a couple weeks ago. We visited my aunt and uncle for an Easter fish fry and they had a cool new tin entry gate/fence at their place. We got to chatting about it and, lo and behold, they had a whole mess of this tin they'd gotten from an old building. Talk about jackpot, they wouldn't let us pay them a dime for it and even helped load it all up. Thanks Dennis and Shar-Shar (so my aunt's name is Sharon, but I nicknamed her when I was a toddler, and it's weird for me to call her Sharon, so don't judge me)! Anyway, this stuff is just perfect for Zach's shack and he has some great ideas for a barn-door in the front and hinged windows in the back.

Moving along.... so now that we had free tin, we had enough already saved in our budget to buy the rest of the materials needed to get the project started. Instead of trying to talk you through the details, why don't you just take a little peek at what we're working towards ...

So here's where we are at now: we've leveled up the ground and put down a pad topped with crush granite, set all the corner posts and have quite a bit of the framing up. When I say we, I primarily mean Zach... and his brother Josh, who has helped us out a bunch. Thanks Josh! Now we've just got to construct the roof, put up the tin, figure out the barn-door, add the porch and a few other details... good thing Josh will be back to help next week. Here's a little snapshot of where we're at right now. I'll post updates as we progress.

Thanks for reading! -ZaK