What's a redneck's famous last words?
"Hey, ya'll, watch this!"
Ahh, but I survived this one.
This is my story that I lived to tell about and thought some of you might at least get a kick out of it. It's about me moving a shed from one house to another.
I had a 10ft x 10ft wooden shed on my old property that I needed for a rat room so I talked my wife into helping me load it up & bring it home. Two people, one p/u truck w/trailer, a floor jack, hammer & chainsaw.
The shed was on a hill and I could only access it from the side, parallel to it, and couldn't back under it. It took some calculating/predicting and some strategic planning to drop the shed off it's blocks and get it onto the trailer. It seemed nearly impossible but I had confidence my plan would work. My wife said, "No way."
Here's me getting ready to begin busting blocks from underneath the shed. You can see the tires of my trailer on the right. That's as close as I could get the trailer and keep
it level because of the hill the shed was on.
I had to dig a few feet out of the hill's bank to get my trailer parallel to shed and closer to it. The trailer is about 7 - 8ft away from shed. I used the old tires to cushion impact & keep the logs on the trailer from busting thru the side of the shed when the shed fell onto it.
I used 3 logs so the shed would sit above the trailer tires, which are higher than the trailer bed. I nailed 2 x 4s on both sides of each log to keep them from rolling. The front log is smaller in diameter than the other 2 for a reason, so the shed would be leaning more towards my truck. I figured that would be better in case the shed were to fall during moving, that way it would fall against the truck bed & hopefully stay on the trailer instead of falling off the back & onto someone's car.
You can see that the front-right stack of blocks have been busted out from under the shed with shed resting on 3 stacks. Now comes the tricky part, busting the other stack and praying the shed doesn't fall my way. Can you say "crazy?" Or "stupid?" Hahaha!!! *Disclaimer: Do not try this at home. Ha! Ha!
"And it's on the ground! Crap! That's not where I wanted it." I had calculated that the shed would fall down to the ground at more of an angle than it did, which would have put it closer to the trailer. I also thought it's momentum would cause it to tip on over on it's side, onto the trailer. I didn't miscalculate by much but I see now that after busting a large portion of the
blocks on the back side we should have then pushed the shed over instead of knocking the blocks out from underneath it. The right side of the shed dropped pretty fast and too much straight down because the shed's so heavy.
We had to use a floor jack to lift the left side up enough for us to push it on over onto the trailer. When we tipped it on over onto the trailer the overhang of the rafters & roof landed on the logs and kept the shed from resting good on the trailer. Break out the chainsaw & cut the rafters' overhang off. It was still resting on the tin roof after cutting the overhanging boards so we pushed like crazy to get the tin roof to bend & let the shed go onto the trailer better. Made it! "Looks good enough for me, let's take it home."
By the time we got the shed on the trailer good it was nearly dark so the next pics we have were taken the next morning at my house.
Home Sweet Home!
We made it! To put that pic in perspective, that's a full-size p/u truck (F150) pulling the trailer & shed. It was about a 4 mile trip of mountain roads; around many curves, up/down several hills. Now, realize that I live in the boonies of southwest NC and this ain't downtown Chicago. I only met one vehicle on the road. My wife was following behind me in her truck.
I had the shed so well balanced on the trailer that I only used 6ft of rope tied from the rafters to the trailer. Of course, I don't think I got drove over 15mph, either.
You can see a litle bit of the damage to the roof on the right side. I'm going to just scab onto the rafters where I cut them and replace the tin on the right side of the shed with some I've had laying around for years.
One window had a busted pane and the other window had been shot with a BB gun, but neither of them were damaged any furter from the move. I guess I should thank the graffiti artist for painting "keep out" on it, maybe it helped keep it from getting vandalized more.
It was even easier to get it off the trailer. I hooked a chain & come-along to an eyebolt I put into a floor joist winched it off just as pretty as you please. The door even closes with a good tight fit, which goes to show that the shed is well built & well worth the time & effort. It would've cost me over $1,000 to build one like it. Took about 2 hours to load & less than 1 hour to unload.
This Spring or Summer I'll slap a coat of paint on it, replace the rafters & roof.
Mission accomplished! I'm happier than a pig in slop.
Whad'ya expect from a hillbilly?
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American
