A Day of Challenges

Today has been a day of challenges for me and all of them involved our newly enlarged storage shed. For most of the summer and fall, we waited for an Amish team to "redo" our storage shed. When we bought this home, a very small shed was included. Naively, we thought we would just replace it with a larger one. Finally, we realized that there was no way to get a larger shed moved in. So we decided to make our shed larger by adding three feet on the back and to raise the roof one and a half feet. This expanded the storage volume enormously. While we were at it, we had the exterior dressed with vinyl siding to match our house. No more painting as we continue to grow older!

Challenge One: What we didn't have done was the interior because I wasn't able to envision how I wanted it set up. I finally decided to build a loft for general storage, a loft for lumber (at a lower height because it's easier for me to lift) and a series of shelves for current projects, power tools, hardware, etc.

Challenge Two: So off to get materials to complete the interior. Oops. We no longer have minivans or full sized station wagons. One itty-bitty sedan coming up. I folded down the back seat, etc. but still had to make two trips to get the lumber home.

Challenge Three: Being sixty-six with arthritis and assorted ailments. Lifting was horrible. Nailing was terrible (sometimes I had to hold the hammer with both hands). Even using the power screw driver was tough. Shaky hands and vision problems made lining up the screw and the driver head nearly impossible. The pain wasn't so great, either.

I'd hang up my tool belt for good except I already gave it to my nephew.