Speaking of Sheds .......(Long read)

When we first moved into this house, all the kids had grown up, married and shifted out so there was just the 2 of us. For some reason known only to women, we still needed to buy a 3 bedroomed house so we bought this one, a 3 bed semi with garden front and back. I was really starting to get the PC bug and suggested that the smallest bedroom would make a good office. The snag with that was that, at the time, we were both smokers and smoking upstairs was against the house rules.
BTW, we both stopped smoking on the 31st of October 2007 but that was 5 years after we moved in here.

So, to make room for lawn mower, tumble drier and other general stuff, PLUS my computer gear, we decided that a shed would be a good idea.
We went out and looked at ready made ones at the local timber places but they were all either to flimsy looking or to costly so we decided to build it ourselves. This decision was greatly influenced by the fact that our youngest boy is a carpenter by trade and has all the tools.
Because the back garden is on a bit of a slope, we built the shed on posts, a bit like an Amazonian Indians straw hut so the first weekend was stuffed while the concrete set round the 6 posts. One post at each corner was no good because the dimensions of the shed were 16 foot x 8 foot x 7 foot.
Over the next 2 weeks the floor, wall and roof went up and I started getting things ready for the shed's intended use. I finished up with 16 power points round the interior ranging from 2 special ones near the door for emergency cut-off if a cable was damaged (mower, strimmer etc) to a clump of 4 at desktop level for PC, printer, broadband modem  and monitor. I ven had broadbant connected by slipping some guy a £10 who knew how to make an extension from the telephone socket in the house out to the shed. I put a counter round 2 full sides of the interior to put stuff on and left one and a half walls free for storing stuff.
We had to give security a thought because of the local area so the interior was lined with what looked like large guage chicken wire and a proper alarm was fitted plus there was a Mickey Mouse accoustic alarm as well.
The whole thing cost us about £2,200 which was half of what a comparable ready made one would have cost us. But after 5 years, we hit a problem. The local toe-rags kept trying to break in all the time. About 2 thirds of the rear wall had been replaced, bit by bit, over the years and so had a third of the roof. With all these holes and the really bad weather, the shed had started to rot and smell a bit so we decdided to get rid of it and get a smaller plastic one for storage and move the PC into the house.
But how do you get rid of a shed?
I advertised it on the local version of Freecycle saying, "It's yours if you want it but you have to empty it and take all the junk away". We got a few interested people round and one guy got the job because he could start the next day.
So this guy and 3 mates turned up the following day and started bringing stuff out past me as I sat in my chair with a brew. As they passed me, I said either BIN or KEEP depending on what it was. At the end of the day, I had a pile of stuff that had to be taken indoors and they had a trailer full of what was now junk. It wasn't proper junk. I mean, why would I store junk? It was just stuff that had been put in there over the years. For instance, there was a 32" TV, video recorder, microwave, beer fridge plus a lot of half built computer bits and bobs and a couple of big, steel filing cabinets.
The next day, they arrived and set to at dismantling the shed.
It took them 4 days altogether and they said that they had never seen a shed that was so well built. It took half a day to get the chicken wire out, lol.
Still, it's all gone now and all that's left is a dark patch on the floor.
I'll post some pictures on the next post and there are no prizes for spotting the parrot.

What! you downsized your shed I don't belive it!