hannahleeduggan: The Biggest Thing I've Ever Built

Okay, so I had a couple changes in direction on how I'm gonna build the garden shed. Basically, I had originally been like, oh I'll do like a concrete, not concrete, I'll do a gravel pad. So you dig like four inches into the soil and then like compact the ground and then add gravel and then compact that and then that allows drainage and just helps with frost movement and whatever. And I went out there to start digging that and realized how much freaking work that would be because I decided to put the garden shed at the very farthest end of the garden and even just digging out the dirt is a lot of work. And then getting the gravel up there, oh my goodness. So I think I'm gonna stick with what I know because I've gotten pretty good at building like deck bases. So I think I'm gonna do that and build the framing on top of that because that will keep it off the ground. And because I'm just a one one man show here, one woman, one gal, one cow folk show, I have to pick things that are like achievable within my strength limits because I'm strong but I'm not 10 people. So I'm just gonna sketch this out for my brain. Y'all. I have another car coming and Nissan is partnering with me. I think I've made it guys. If you think this ---- gets normal, it just doesn't. It doesn't get normal. This is really weird and wild. I am just waiting on this delivery. So I can't back the truck. But the truck drives right? Yes. Bro, I'm trying so hard to be chill while this truck driver's still here. Y'all, they gave me one with a rooftop tent. Dude, are you kidding me? What? What is going on? Oh my god, I mean going to put the key in. Is it push to start? Oh my god. What in the fancy? Do they know who I am? I feel like a fancy broad right now. Oh baby, we're going home. Dude, look at the dust. Okay. Oh my god, we're going home. Why does it already fit in? You're cute. Oh, so cute. I love him. He's so cute. We're going to give him a rinse down so you can see him in his full beauty. Okay, I'm clean. The car is clean. You guys are clean. Testing things out. Oh, this is so fancy. I'm so excited about this. There's so many buttons. First of all, it's a hot day. And I'm going to try out the thing that I'm very, very excited about is the dual zone HVAC controls. Let's try them out. I bet, I bet it blasts. Oh yes, it does. What is this immediate cold air? Are you joking? That has never once been a thing for me. I honestly, I don't think I've ever, out of every vehicle, I've never had any, any air control. Baby's first air control. This is all good stuff. Very exciting. I'm really excited about the heated front seats in the winter. Oh, this is fun. It's got an available 12.3 inch touchscreen. Also available Apple CarPlay. So I can jam out. I'm going to see if I can figure out how to make that work. Get connected. Okay, so apparently it has this intelligent around view monitor. Gone are the days of sticking my whole head out the window. Okay, I'm going to drive forward. I have this really long driveway and it's winding. I always have to back out. So that is always the hardest part about leaving my house. Going into reverse. Whoa, look at this cool screen. Cut it out. I can see from the top of the truck. Oh, oh, it's stopping me. Oh, that's cool. It didn't want me to run off the road. Okay, I'm taking it for a little drive. Ah, buddy, I'm so excited to have you. We're going to have so many adventures. Good morning, friends. I went and I got a whole lot of lumber. A whole lot. It's actually not a whole lot. It's just enough to build a deck base. So it's going to take some hauling. Let's get to it. Normally I don't drive my car up to the garden entrance because I don't want to hurt the grass, but the grass is so dry the weather, that I don't, I don't think I care. It's gonna be a hot one. It's supposed to be 90 degrees out today. I haven't felt the sun or the blowing of the wind. Don't know where it goes. Haven't heard where she's been. To be happy. Stay strong. To feel loved. To be known. I haven't read a book without skipping a page. I don't take the time. I don't know how to wait to be. Stay. It's hot. Okay, um, here's what's happening. So I bought these. What am I doing? This way? Yes. Um, these are like deck base footings. The store that I went to didn't have the concrete ones, but they told me that these are more durable anyway. I looked up the specs and stuff and they actually hold more weight. They don't crumble, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I'm going with these, um, because they're what I have now. I'm going to dig holes where each of these are going to go and then I'm going to fill them in with rock, um, so that there's drainage underneath them and a little bit more of like a solid base. Um, and then I'll set these on top of that, level them, and then I can start building the base, which should go together pretty quickly. It's, I think just getting everything squared and lined up is the hardest part. So that's the plan. I just got to tell you guys every time I take a step because it's complicated in my head and talking to you about it makes it make more sense to me. So that's, that's it, I think. Um, I also have a spot on my driveway that washed out when the, the creek flooded over the spring with the snow melt. So I figure this isn't the right stuff to do it with. This is just dirt, but it makes my car go bump every time I go over it. So I'm just going to start filling it in and when it washes out again I'll deal with it sometime, but I have to dump this somewhere anyway. Okay, so I figure right here is what we're gonna do about it. I'll come through and tamp it down better later. So I took my first jiu-jitsu class yesterday and my whole body hurts. I truly, literally feel beat up right now. Very sore. I haven't done yoga in a long time, but this feels like a really good time to do it. Everything's painful. I had a lot of fun, but I'm gonna need to start stretching more. I'm gonna do that every week. Okay, I'm very hot. It's very hot out today. Even my camera has an umbrella. Okay, I went ahead and leveled stuff because that's boring. I didn't know how to show that and like a lot of back and forth and doing stupid things. One of my boards is pretty warped, so before putting the last board on the square, the rectangular frame, I'm going to get the joists put in too so that they're helping to bring things out. It doesn't fully make sense in my brain either, but it's what I'm gonna do. I'm just trying to get this base done so that I can put the deck boards on. Hi, um, I really want to finish this freaking deck in the garden, but man, I'll tell ya. Living in a small town in the lumberyard, it's closed on the weekends. Anyway, so windows are behind this really old decrepit solar panel that I took down, uh, so I'm gonna bring those up to the garden because they have to get up there at some point anyway. Oh, I can break this so easily. Yikes. Whoa. I recognize I made a lot of work for myself, but I think I have to move these over that way. Nice little workout. Fucker. That was panicky. Um, I forgot that yesterday I saw, like, I don't know if it's a wasp nest or a bee nest or what, but right where I just dropped the brick that I brought over, not the first brick, I think I just got a stung twice on my neck and it got, like, caught in my hair. So that was me sprinting, sprinting out the garden. Oh, that hurt. Luckily the ice is detracting from the pain. Stupid. You see anything? I think one's right here. Oh yeah, there it is. I can see that. Right there. Damn, they got me. Yep. I don't know if you can see it, but there's the culprit. Right there. Good morning. This is all done. Now I just gotta block it. Um, I have one piece here, and then all the deck boards are here. I got them yesterday. It was a whole ordeal. Don't ask me about it. So I'm gonna block, which means sew through the center here so that these boards don't warp. I'm cutting ten and a half inch pieces of this treated two by six, and I'm just putting those small chunks kind of staggered in between all of these all the way across so that they keep their their shape. They don't warp. And then I can put the back and then the deck part is done, and then I can start thinking about how I'm gonna frame this out because I've never framed anything out before, and I'm very curious to see if I'm any good at that. Good morning, Pergola. And I just did a really nice yoga session. I think this is my yoga place in the summer. I'm realizing I don't stretch enough for all of the manual labor that I do. I don't know why I said I'm realizing. I don't know this, but I really want to try to get into better routines, so I'm trying. I'm trying. I did a good journal session this morning. I have a candle going. I'm calm. Look at how cozy this is. I really cranked through the rest of getting all the boards screwed down. They're super warped, and so I had to go through each board individually, and every time I'd screw something down, I had to shim it wider, or I would use a clamp. Yeah, I would use one of those twisty clamps to bend the board back the way I needed it to bend if it was curving away, so it was a labor of love, but I think it's worth them all being nice and straight. So now the base is done. I'm missing one board on the end, but that should be pretty easy, and then I have to frame the walls out, which is nerve-wracking because I've never done that before, and so there's some things conceptually that I don't really know how to do or what I'm doing, but I've just been googling a lot and trying to figure it out, so I think I figured out the back wall. I just need to figure out the other walls.