Shed Droop

I've blogged extensively about my search for, and subsequent building of, a little garden shed. I'm very happy with it now, except for one nagging issue, which is, I think it is sagging a bit.

The front door has come out of true and a few boards have shifted a fraction, showing the unstained gaps beneath. The funny thing, though, is that when I use a bubble level on it, it seems to be true. But when I look at it, it seems the shed has settled in its back-left corner, although my measurements aren't proving that. Also, both Rutger and Sooz think it looks OK and that my eyesight is playing tricks on me. (They could be right; my eyesight is terrible, even in good circumstances!)

I did manage to improve things on my last visit by doing a bit of adjustment to the hinges. I also bought a bit of hardware at Lowe's to put a cable tension on the door. (A digression: there is a lot of shed building information out on the internet!)

I still think my shed needs to be jacked up a bit in the back, though, no matter what my instruments tell me. Fortunately, there'll be a lot of eyes to take a look at it when I'm there next. I'm sure the collective wisdom of Margaret, Janne, Ann, Dave, Olle and Annika will tell me if I have a problem or not!!!

A Rainy Day

It was, as forecasted, rainy today. Rutger and I managed to get the door on the shed before the rain really got heavy. Sooz and I hitched a ride with Rutger at noon and went to Gustavsberg for a 90 minute blitz of shopping. We topped up our groceries and decided on a grey stain for the shed, plus a heavy roll of roof paper.

I hope to finish the roof tomorrow and we'll stain the shed over the next few sunny days. Photos are in the Summer 2011 webgallery.

First day: hard at work!

I had a quick night with Marcia & Rutger, and Rutger came with me to Aspö this morning. He went straight to work with Grant and I on the shed and we managed to get it mostly done before gin & tonic time.

The forecast is for rain tomorrow which seems hard to imagine given the clear evening. The 'dance floor' opened on the midsummer meadow tonight and we went over for a quick glass of champagne to celebrate its inauguration. Sooz and I cut the rug a bit ourselves. More photos and info later but for now, the jet lag is striking me hard...

The shed saga

After a great deal of misunderstanding and calling back and forth, the shed finally arrived on the dock today. Thanks to Sooz and Marcia and Rutger, and Helene at the Stavsnäs harbor, it all got figured out. Phew! Tonight Sooz and Grant and Janne will haul it up our way from the dock. Now all I have to do is assemble it!

I leave this evening for London and I'm really looking forward to it; Ollie and I have been dealing with lots of 100+ days. A few nights at half that temperature seems like heaven to me.

The Eaglet has landed

...that would be Grant, who successfully negotiated the London-to-Aspö trip today. He's safely home with his mother, as well as Marcia, who got to stay another night.

Everyone seemed to have had a good day, from what I could see on our video chats. The girls were sunning during the day and in sweatshirts at night. Ollie and I are sweltering in 100+ temperatures all day, however.

One snag is that the shed is held up in some transport confusion, despite all my careful arrangements. Sooz and Marcia are on the case, although I'm really worried that if delivery is delayed this week, midsummer traffic next week might really screw up my schedule! Let's hope for a good resolution tomorrow.

UPDATE Tuesday- the girls have sorted out the shipping issue and the shed should arrive tomorrow (Wednesday).

The Shed!

Believe it or not, I've finally bought a shed. I saw a decent deal on one of the cheap Bauhaus sheds in May, but when delivery was added in, the deal wasn't that good. Plus it has very thin walls, about 16mm, which is barely half an inch.

Last summer, I had found a shed from Polhus with walls twice as thick but also quite a bit more costly. This year, however, they've introduced a new model, the "Lelle," which is a bit smaller and cheaper.

I've arranged with Christer from Polhus to buy a Lelle and have the shed kit sent to the big Waxholms dock on Aspö the week before I arrive. Conveniently enough, Grant will already be there so he can bring the lumber up to the house. I've talked to Janne and he said he'd help Grant move the big pieces with his 4-wheeler. Typically, Janne only uses his vehicle in the off-season due to traffic on the island's paths, but he said a few weekday evening jaunts are no problem.

With a bit of luck, (and hard work by Grant), the shed kit will be on-site, ready to assemble as soon as I arrive on the 18th. It should be a fun building project for Grant and I, and Sooz will get all of my tools and parts out of her guest house.

Foreign Sheds

Not much progress on the shed front, unfortunately. I've called the people at Caboden twice and sent them English and Swedish emails, with no reply at all. I really like the look of their product, though, so I guess my next step is to ask Rutger or Janne to talk them Swede-to-Swede. But frankly, it's a Spring 2011 project now, so there's no hurry.

When Rutger and I went up to Aspö a few weeks ago, we stopped by Bygg-Ole in Gustavsberg to look at their shed collection. Rutger thinks I should get something bigger if I'm going to go through the trouble. We saw a model called "Skagen" on sale for 42,000kr which was nice, but I fear too large and definitely too pricey. I think the same company's "Lasse" is more my size (4.2 square meters) and price (15,000 kronor).

Last weekend, I visited a Home Depot while in North Carolina to visit Grant. I have to say I was amazed at the range, and especially the price, of sheds available there. Here's Sooz pictured in front of just the smaller of the models available.

This shed is closest to the size I want. It's actually a little larger, 8 x 8 feet, or about 6 sq. m. But notice the price; $1329, or just under 10,000 kronor with sales tax. That includes delivery, painting, and installation on site!  Holy moly.

I checked the paperwork, and that deal is unfortunately only for installation within 50 miles of the store. Seeing how Aspö is 4420 miles away, that probably wouldn't work. Darn.

Yet another shed post!

I called the people at CA-Boden today (they're the ones with the mini-Funkis) to talk about a possible shed. Somehow, I rang through to their director, Christer, who was a little nonplussed by my American accent, but agreed to send me an email for a quote for a small shed.

I asked for something about 6 square meters, not insulated, with a window and a door, delivered to Djurö. Janne suggested I insulate the shed (or at least a portion of it) because I could keep freezables like paint in there more safely. But I thought I'd get a non-insulated quote as I still have 4 bales of insulation stored under the house from our original construction.

When I hear from Christer, I will of course report back!

Progress on the shed front

The shed-hunting has turned into a family affair on Aspö. Ann brought over a magazine with a number of possibilities. A new company they found was Jadestugan, but it appears they make the same type of 'plywood' sheds of which Janne disapproves.

He and Margaret spotted a potential alternative close to home, however. A new house is going up on the path near their (and Ann& Dave's) home, and a little stuga was built there a few years back as an initial building. It appears to be a step up from the thin sheds I've been looking at, and it also has the same slanted-roof profile of my X-Houses.

Janne talked to his neighbor and found they were made by yet another prefab provider, Caboden. I checked their website and saw the "Mini Funkis" range, which does indeed look like my X-Houses. As best as I can tell, they have a 6m² model for around 18,000kr, which is double the cost of the cheaper sheds, but half the cost of a full X-House. I take that as good news, as it's likely to be much more sturdy, yet it's still (probably) within my budget. This might be just what we were looking for!

I have sent an email to the company asking if I could talk to someone in English and I'll report back when I (if?) hear from them.

The x-house shed

I had posted previously about asking Stefan for a quote for an X-House shed, which came in at 39,000kr. I asked him it it was possible to do anything different to help reduce the cost. He replied yesterday with what I thought to be a very useful and detailed reply, which I thought I'd share. (NB: I removed prices because that might be commercially sensitive information):

Hello Don,

I agree with you, to build a small house like this shed could be built more cost efficiently.

You cannot compare our building method in solid wood with a simple shed made of thin panel, it is a different way to do it. We don't sell any small houses, our bulding method is most cost efficient in larger houses.

For this small shed I quoted you for example we have one entrance door which have a cost price for us to buy [removed] SEK incl VAT. I have calculated 200 screws, cost price for us to buy [removed] SEK and all other material. I have calculated the offer for you with a very small margin. If we make it in a thinner wall dimension the price will reduce a little bit, but still it is impossible to compete with a shed made on site from thin panel.

For example I have my own shed in Täby from Coop Forum instead of glulam like the X-House. It is impossible to make it in glulam quality like other X-House in the price level they offer at for example: Coop, Bauhaus, K-Rauta etc. Remember that the quality is not the same, but for a simple shed you don’t need more quality maybe.

Regards Stefan

I have always been impressed with Stefan's responsiveness and detail over the past three years. This email is just another example of his patient dealing with a pushy American customer!

A shed-load of sheds

This one's called "Tim" by Polhus, a Swedish company who make a wide range of sheds and cabins. It is a bit more robust, with 28mm walls compared to the 16mm of the Lillevilla. The size is right, at 6.2 square meters. It's pricier, however, about 10,000 kronor.

JABO is a big pan-European shed manufacturer (which is a phrase I never thought I'd use in a sentence.) They have a nice 4.6 sq. m. shed at a good price, but again, the walls are pretty thin, only 20mm.

Janne shares my concern about these thin-walled sheds (he calls them 'plywood' sheds.) He suggested I ask X-House, and in fact, I had. Stefan gave me a quote for a custom shed, built in the same manner as my other two houses. However, their quote was 39,000kr, which is quite a lot when I've been looking at sheds between 5 and 10 thousand.

I replied to Stefan asking if there was a way to lower the specifications and price of their shed. I also dropped Wille a line to see if he had any ideas or recommendations. Even with price concerns, though, I don't want to put up something cheap and nasty. It would be better to have something solid like my X-Houses.

The first shed candidate

This one's from Bauhaus, the European home improvement chain (not the German art school). They have a store near Marcia & Rutger, so we've made many, many visits there over the years.

Bauhaus sells a wide range of little cabins and sheds. This model is appropriately called Lillevilla. It has a couple of things going for it. First, it's about the exact size I had envisioned, 1.8 by 2.4 meters, giving a bit over 4 square meters of interior space. Secondly, the price is right, it's fairly cheap at 4995 kronor.

The biggest downside is that it's pretty flimsy. The walls are only 16mm thick. (That's a bit over ½ an inch.) As Rutger puts it, you can't really hang much on the inside, a nail would go right through. I also worry that exposed life on the island will be pretty tough on such a thin structure. (For comparison, the walls on the little house are 66mm, and the big house, 140mm.)

I think we'll have to go a little bit bigger, or sturdier at least. Fortunately, there are a lot of options out there, and we'll look at another in the next episode of "The Shedhunter"!


UPDATE: I thought I had read that the walls on the Lunar Module were very thin, and I was right, much of it was less than a ¼ inch thick. (It is ironic that I spent time today, of all days, looking at Apollo info on the web!) Unfortunately, in my research, I came across many "moon landing is a hoax" websites, which really annoyed me. Idiots.

A Shed

Sheds have a special place in UK culture. They are typically used as a refuge by henpecked husbands, a little bit of manly space in a country that doesn't have much room to spare.

In our case, however, it's not me who is pushing for a shed on our property, it's Sooz. She is anxious to clear the tools and storage out of our little house so she can make it into a proper guest stuga. Her long-term plans involve painting, a little sink, more furniture of course, and although she hasn't said so directly, probably lots of nice Swedish fabrics. But for her to do her remodeling, my stuff has to go. Hence the shed.

I've been doing lots of looking and found a number of alternatives. First, of course, was to decide how big a shed needs to be and where it should go. I measured a few things and I think something about 5 square meters would do the trick. I laid out a space between the two houses about 2 by 2½ meters which fits the area nicely.

Next of course, is what kind of shed. There are many variations available in the size I want. The key question, then, is: hay, sticks, or brick??? Stay tuned.