Off to the Shed

Ok I think I have cured my writers block and I am back again, albeit the same day or the next…

When we did the original plans for the house with the Architect, I had asked that a shed be included, I didn’t really go into it much, but throughout the course of the design process an outline was done which made it on the plans, which showed the shed being in roughly the location that I wanted it still not disturbing the precious lemon tree. It became evident during the design process and subject to costs that the shed would have to wait, but somehow it made it on to the Building permit application and was approved.

The approved plans weren’t exactly how I wanted it and so with a few ‘minor’ changes I started to sketch up a plan of what I really wanted and what would give me the biggest shed that I could have on our 480sqm suburban block - minus the house, minus the lemon tree, minus the front and back yards leaving not much space at all. Hmm what could I do… hey maybe put a cellar in and have a two storey shed… oh that got the brain matter going… but unfortunately with the landscaping and fencing and mortgage that would be a pipe dream. So with my trusty A3 drawing board, pencil and scale ruler I set out designing my shed. I planned on putting a toilet in the shed so that this could be a self contained room with its own water etc. So I included this in the plans and we’ll see what happens.

After I completed the plans of the slab and the layout of the shed, I got in my trusty little excavator and dug the footings for the shed, on the advise that I could get a concreter pretty quickly. Four weeks later, after some consolidation of the edge beams and the collapse of the fill area. I had to accept that it would cost more to reform the edge beams and fill areas than it would concrete, so lets just say my shed slab is not going anywhere!

Check out the photos - the first one shows what happens when the excavation is left open for a while… It looks pretty messy and like another pile of dirt really!

Now here’s what a couple of good Concreters can manufacture within a few hows!

You can also see some orange conduit which will carry the power to the shed, buried at the right depth of 500mm below finished ground. I placed the uprights of the conduit in the formwork so that the cabling can be pulled through the conduit when the slab was poured. We’re getting closer!