Monday, November 26, 2012

Panels and Windows

With the roof and corrugated walls up, time to move on to the wall panels. Instrux say to stain them with aluminum paint and then varnish with Man'O War. I decided that my plywood was too pretty to stain, and Man'O War is not available in CA (I prefer the cleanish air, so its ok). So, I'm using several coats of satin Varthane marine varnish. I now have a semi-protected space to do the varnishing in, so after getting the panels cut to size I moved sawhorses into the MD100.


 There is one large panel on the side that I thought would be a good "benchmark" spot, so I made an outline of the kids at their current heights. It will be fun in a few years to see how short they were. I had the panel propped up on a block of wood so it was at the right height for the outline, then flipped it into the building for its turn at the varnish table:

Finally got the panels up in the evening a few days later: dark happens early this time of year. I did buy some shorter stainless square drive screws for attaching these panels, because they're much spiffier-looking than deck screws, what with being shiny and having the square hole in them. (I drilled pilot holes.) I'm holding off on one panel because I am installing a small a/c unit in that spot and I'm not sure how I want to cut it yet. While waiting for the panels to dry, I was priming the rest of the exterior bare wood. I couldn't find much in the way of decently straight or smooth furring strips reasonably priced, so hubby and I ripped down four 8' 2x4s into 16 3/4"x1.5" strips to frame in the windows, you can see them primed and drying below, too:

South side:
North side:


Sunday, November 25, 2012

Roof/Walls

I was still working out exactly what I wanted to do with the ceiling/roof. I didn't like the way it looked sunk into the room in the pictures I'd seen of finished MD100s. Additionally, the sun is really strong here, and I wanted some kind of roof insulation/ventilation; this design is great, but its a greenhouse waiting to happen. I decided to mount the roof frame so its bottom was flush with the bottom of the top rail on the walls, instead of the top flush with the top of the walls. This made the roof frame stick 2" above the wall framing.

roof frame change detail

I also wanted a little extra overhang on the front of the building, so in the Summer the East-facing front would be shaded that much sooner in the morning (ok, only half an hour, but it counts). I  cut boards to extend from the roof frame, with a divot to go over the front/back wall, and then stick out to 3" short of where I wanted the roof to end. These are positioned and fastened to the roof frame as if they are extensions of the original roof frame design off the front and back. (I cut the ends at the 6° angle.) These don't fit perfectly, but they don't really need to, and caulk heals a multitude of gaps. I  put a 2" support block in the middle of the 48" span as well.



I put polyester fiber called Flex-o-Vent Ridge Vent strips into the spaces between the roof frame boards on the front and back walls. Then I cut down four 2x4x10' boards to actual 2"x1.5"x10' to build up each side wall to the new roof height. I wanted to make sure the roof weight was sitting on the walls, and not only on the roof frame that's just hanging there by some screws. Because I had changed things, the roof is no longer supported as well at the front and the back, so side support is more crucial.

After I got the roof frame changes dealt with, hubby and I cut the plywood, adjusting the  dimension (I added 1' to the front), and he helped me hoist it all up there. That's when I realized that without wallboard, the whole frame did a hula with every move on the roof. I'm pretty sure it was fine, but it was sufficiently disconcerting that roof assembly halted till I got the corrugated walls on. I should add that during the roof frame changes I ran out of the square drive screws and just started using my preferred philips deck screws—still drilling pilot holes, though. 

Putting up the corrugated was pretty easy, but I had to do the first wall twice to get the hang of it. Probably should have followed EB's instructions and done this part before erecting the walls (oops). Regardless, I recommend you tack down ONE of the end channels first (these are in the drywall part of the store, btw) so you can tuck each sheet into a known straight and level place—use a couple short deck screws so they're out of the way. (Make sure you get self-driving metal screws with a washer and rubber gasket collar on them. I used Grip-Rite, which came with a driver in the box.) It was easier if I moved the gasket & rubber collar down towards the point of the screw to start it.

After the all the corrugated sheets are tacked down in a couple spots in the middle, put the other end channel on—it will stay with just friction. Then tuck in the foam from behind both of them before you screw down the ends. I just bent the edges up a bit out of the way for each screw and used a leather mallet to ding them back into place afterwards. Its not perfect, but it looks good from a distance.

After the corrugated was up, the roof was much less mobile, and I finished that in a day or two. The corrugated had the added benefit of making the structure look like "something" finally. Hard to believe this was a swimming pool.

Walls

As per the instructions, I built the walls and ceiling flat on sawhorses, just stacked them on top of each other as I went, so it was easier as the stack got taller. I used the recommended square-drive stainless screws. I didn't like them, their shanks would twist right off occasionally, or the stupid things would strip. I got the big box of them and probably threw out 100 or so. In their defense I was using an ancient craftsman drill that had zero clutch adjustment and I wasn't drilling pilot holes. My previous experiences with deck screws led me to imagine I wouldn't need to. Once I did start using pilot holes, it was easier, if not faster.

I also used kiln-dried 2x4s in 8' and 10' lengths. HD doesn't have 10' kiln dried lying around, so I ordered it from a local lumber outfit for about $30 more than it would have been at HD. 2x4s were $200, including extra ones I have bought since then for adjustments I made to the ceiling design. I used kiln-dried because it was the path of least commentary from my Dad and husband, though my carpenter friend said it was overkill.

Here I am making walls: I'm the zaftig suburban lady in the middle. Fortunately, this area of the yard is shaded, because it was 95°F outside—it had cooled off! You can see the layers of walls stacked up, the bottom layer is the back wall, front wall, and 2 side walls that are identical. I was using the clamp to make sure the wood made a fairly flat plane at the joins. Even kiln-dried, it wanted to twist a bit.


After my husband and Thing 1 helped me raise the walls. Lots of screwing things down still had to happen, the walls were connected by the boards at the top corners.


The Floor

I am fortunate to have a friend with a truck, who also happens to be a professional carpenter. This is  handy because his observations made me more confidant. In the beginning, though, it was great that he had a truck and was willing to run to Home Depot. Much simpler than me making space in my van and wrestling plywood solo.

I bought more wood than I would need for the project, expecting that I would make at least one catastrophically erroneous cut. There was a minor sale on A/A plywood that week, and with that it was only a few $ more than the C grade I had planned on getting, so I got nice plywood for the whole thing. 16 pieces $29 each. The most expensive part, but the wood is pretty. For a nominal fee per cut, Home Depot will cut wood right there if you need it. We happen to have a table saw, so I didn't avail myself of that service.

Unfortunately, some was going to be wood for the floor, so it didn't matter how pretty it was, it was getting a coating of anti-termite goo that hubs had lying around from a previous project. It is a watery green concoction that smells awful. I put it on the bottom, 2 coats. Let it dry. Spent half a day screwing things down, voila, the platform:




Getting Started

It has been inspiring to see finished and in-process MD100 "modern sheds" around the net. I don't have the patience to do a time-lapse as others have done, but I can take notes and put up some photos I took along the way. I hope this is similarly motivating to others, because this is a sweet little building.

I realized I would finally have space to put a studio when, after living with an overly large in-ground swimming pool for 12 years, my husband and I decided to get rid of it. There wasn't much objection from the kids, which is why it seemed like a good idea—nobody was using it much. Demolition started at the end of April 2012 and by the end of June we had completed installation of sprinklers, grass, and some landscaping—mostly moving around stuff we already had. Its too hot to plant new things here (Pasadena, CA) in Summer.

I started working in earnest on my MD100 "studio" in July 2012, having positioned piers and assembled the floor joists in June. Unfortunately, there was a pretty extreme heat wave for a lot of August and some of September. I wanted to get work done, but I'm not a total masochist, progress during this period was practically nil.

Because we'd just had the pool removed, and the studio is positioned at roughly the transition between the shallow and deep ends, I didn't feel the need to dig holes for cement anchors. The demolition company had compacted the high-clay content earth to the point that even the trenching machine we rented had trouble getting into it. I figured that was stable enough for just cement piers resting on the ground, as pictured in the design plans for the MD100. Also, I reaaaaally didn't want to dig holes. 

I'd read on another of the blogs that Blazona recommended using 2x6s for the floors, and since this is earthquake country I thought I'd go one better, so I used 2x6s for the joists, but hung them from 4x6 rails at the front and back. I used pressure-treated wood for the floor joists as extra insurance from the ever-present termites. I made the required adjustments to various measurements. Be aware that pressure-treated wood is pretty wet, and wants to warp, so you need to get it in place as quickly as possible. Its also harder to drill into. I used Simpson Strong-Ties to hang the joists, since I wasn't going to drill through the 4x. Most items for this project were purchased at Home Depot. I didn't take pictures of just the platform, oops.

The pool on a party day:


Thing 1 holding up the as-yet non-existent studio: