Friday, November 16, 2012

get my husband his own hgtv show, please

ten weeks ago, matt started to build a shed in the back of our backyard. we lost our garage when it got renovated into my studio, so our backyard has looked like a junkyard for a while, with lots of randomness strewn everywhere. 

we'd talked for a long time about matt building a shed instead of getting a prefab one from somewhere like home depot. 

since we moved in to our house two years ago, matt has done quite a few big projects, including renovating the studio, painting the exterior of our house, and tearing out the massive built in bunk beds in the downstairs bedroom. he saved all of the wood when he tore out those bunk beds and all of the built-in shelving in the garage, plus some extra scrap wood, with the vision of repurposing that wood for the exterior and interior of the shed. we both knew what we wanted it to look like, and he was pretty sure he could do it with some consultation from friends who know more about this stuff than he does. (i smiled and nodded, but was kind of incredulous)

trying to be a helpful partner in home renovation, i decided to go online and find a bunch of shed plans. i came up with an entire pinterest board of free modern looking shed plans, dimensions and all, and presented them to matt. i drew a wonky little sketch of the front and side view of the potential shed. 
matt looked and listened. then he proceeded to ignore my nicely collated online plans, took my lame sketch, and started to figure out dimensions. every so often i would ask him, "are you sure you don't want to use these plans? they have all the numbers and directions and everything." (i've been wrong before- i had pretty low expectations for the diningroom table he was building out of scrap wood and then it was *amazing*.) but somehow it seemed like building a shed with jerry-rigged sketches and numbers scrawled on a piece of paper wasn't going to work so well. i think it comes down to the fact that i would've had absolutely no idea how to build a shed or any kind of building at all. i mean, maybe if it was held together with duct tape and gumdrops it would last a day or two, but a permanent structure? but i (kind of) trusted matt, and considering i was so off base last time around with the table, i had no choice but to rally and believe the shed was going to happen and that our back yard would stop channeling a rusty abandoned lot in rural arkansas.

see for yourself what happened...
m has a dance party in the shed!
(the greenish boards are from the bunkbeds, 
the white and grey/blue used to be shelving in our garage)
viola! less than three months of piecing together random snippets of time and scrap wood, and our shed is finally done, barn door and all!
and our local dump has less in it, thanks to our own backyard pulling double duty as a lumberyard for a couple years.
i'm slightly obsessed with its awesomeness & that matt pulled it off 
(thanks, chris magnuson for construction consultation)
 
(not pictured-awesome interior shelving action)
* also not pictured, the big fat take-backs i had to do for doubting husband's shed-building (both functional and aesthetic) abilities.

happy almost weekend!

10 comments:

  1. Yowza- that looks awesome!!! let's get that thing up on apartment therapy!!!

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  2. Holy smokes! This shed turned out so fantastically, I don't even know...
    Well done, Mateo! And Sooz, you totally have to stop doubting his handiness...because he can bring the action. Obvi x2+ Love to you both!

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  3. Wow, not only super functional, but super artsy as well!

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  4. Jenna and I are totally amazed! Great work Matt!!!!!!!!!!!! (And Suz, beautiful photos!!!) :)

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  5. Wow, super impressive! Does he contract out? I can come up with a few projects for him!

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