Does anyone really care if a work shed is level? Does anyone know if it matters? I mean, come on. With all the problems we have in the world — the poverty, the war, the sickness, the Hollywood muckity-mucks running around with no underpants — does a little uneven-ess truly matter?
By uneven, I’m only talking about a good 5 or 6 inches off, in multiple angles, and directions. People stare, tilt their heads and ask, “Am I screwy or is your shed bending over to tie its shoes?”
Now, I’ve written about my shed and its problems before, so I should clarify: These aren’t the old problems — this is since I started working on it.
Some things don’t want to be fixed, and my shed is one of them.
When last I told of the great story of my work shed, the floor was rotting out, the base beams for the walls had turned to sawdust and a nudist colony of squirrels had opened up a spa in the rafters. (They, or someone else, ate a WHOLE bag of winter rye, and now instead of a floor, I have a green grass carpet from what they spilled.)
It was a mess, so I went to work. I ripped out the floor and decided to replace the beams around the base by jacking up the shed. My brother has hydraulic jacks, and I pictured myself lifting it up little by little with a few pumps, sliding new beams under there and getting out quick before it all toppled on my head.
Good plan, until I didn’t get the jacks and my brother went out of town. And because I’m so impatient and didn’t want to wait, I decided to go ahead over the Christmas break without them. So instead of jacks, I used what anyone in the industry would — a bent piece of galvanized pipe with a couple of concrete blocks.
My mother was still in town, so I conscripted her to help. I would use the pipe to lever one side skyward, yelling to my mother to throw a piece of wood under the wall to prop it up.
“Can you lift it any more?” she would shout as I strained with all my might. Veins the size of city sewer lines erupted from my necks and arms. A muscle literally popped out of my shoulder and flopped about on the ground like a fish. For goodness sake, I barely weigh 160 pounds, and that’s only when it’s extremely humid out.
“If I could lift it anymore, don’t you think I would,” I shouted back. “How much more do you need?”
“Well,” she called back, “you’ve actually lost a couple inches since you started. I think it’s sinking into the ground. Have you done this before?”
Have I done this before? I think it was at that point that I realized that both of us were going to die under that shed. Yet, somehow I did it. We did it. Don’t ask me how. That’s the world’s greatest pipe, and I’ll rent it out to recoup the money I’ll need for back surgery.
But now I think I’ve done irreparable damage to the shed during the big lift. The new beams are in, and it’s solid. Just solidly crooked, and un-level. I realized this as I measured the doorway.
“Octagon?” I remember saying to myself out loud. “How the heck did this end up octagon?”
There’s no getting it level again (not that it ever was), so I’m moving on. I’ll just get it as close to square as I can, and then see if school tours will want to come by to see the shed that “defies physics and gravity!”
I’m doing what I can and fixing what can be fixed, and it’s starting to look pretty good … as long as you don’t look at it straight on.