Two Thumbs up for Investments in Storage

One of the biggest financial and physical investments we've made for the Berryville house arrived on a trailer yesterday. We bought our new shed, mostly used for yard stuff like the lawn mowers, weed whacker, shovels, rakes, trimmers, etc., about two months ago and it finally came yesterday morning. We've been so excited to see it, and even though it was a fairly painful price tag we feel good about the decision we made to go with this company. It cost about the same as if we had gone with a kit from Home Depot, and this one came fully put together and ready to go. We considered building our own from scratch and we considered the kit route, but in the end we felt like this was one project we were willing to pay for someone else to do and to have minimal hassle.

I - shockingly - didn't take any actual pictures of the shed we originally had next to the house. There is one picture with it in the background. You can get an idea of its placement but not really how bad a shape it was in.

It's the little red metal building on the other side of the fence. It sat on a concrete slab off to the side of our garage, and couldn't hold much more than the lawn mower. The shed itself was about a third the size of the concrete slab it sat on, which never really made much sense to us. It had obviously been around for a while too, since the metal was worn; the doors were warped and bent and you had to wrestle, kick, and shove the doors in order to slide them open. They were kind of a nightmare...not my favorite. We loved that there was a shed there to buy us some time, but we also knew we'd have to replace it no later than this summer.  The less than ideal state the shed was in wasn't great, but it also didn't store too much for us so a lot of things still had to be kept in the garage. Our garage is larger than normal (about a stall and a half) but it fills up quick with my car and the bike in there, plus a tool bench, storage units, etc. So we did some research, asked some friends about local options, and bought from a great little company down in Front Royal. We were able to give the old shed to our neighbor, and I did snap some pictures of the slab after it had been hauled away.

The dirt is from where the shed was, so you can see how much more space we had to work with. The new shed was made to the same dimensions of the slab, so we could take full advantage of the space. Our neighbor took the shed himself so all we had to do was sweep the slab off and pull those dead bushes out of the mulched area so the guys could back the new shed right in.

 There she is! The hubs and I stood on the driveway, holding our coffee cups and in complete awe of the guy's ability to back this massively huge trailer up, weaving in between our cars with no spotter. I've seen a backed up trailer in my time and I can say with much authority that he's an expert. The rest of the process of getting it on the slab was equally - if not way more - impressive.

They backed it up, right onto the center of the slab, and then let the hydraulic lift/dump do pretty much the rest of the work. Can I also mention that this thing is remote controlled? I looked at the hubs and said "I want one." Do we have any use at all for one? No. Could we even come close to affording one? No. But seriously...I want one.

Incredible. Truly, incredible. Can I also mention that at one point the shed was about a hair away from hitting the fence but they were such artists. I should also point out that this whole process was basically torture for Captain, who was stuck on the other side of the fence. So close and yet...

And there's the finished product, in place and ready to fill! (So sorry about my finger in the bottom of the photo...) The ramp was an extra - but really unavoidable - add-on we got for driving the lawn mower in and out. A couple details about the shed we chose: it's the barn style, with the two big doors you see and two small windows (one on the back wall and one on the other side wall). There's also a storage loft on the inside. Here's a look at the inside of the shed, before we filled it.

There are the windows and the loft. Also, look at all that beautiful space. We wasted no time moving as much as we could from the garage into the shed as soon as the guys left. It's not very organized at all, and we will invest in some organizational items in the future (hooks to hang things on walls, shelves, etc.) but what's so great is that it's not an emergency. There's so much space in there it will work like this for as long as we want until we're comfortable spending the money to make it more permanent and organized.

The only thing you don't see in here is the riding lawn mower, which was left out because the hubs mowed the lawn right after we moved all of this into the shed. But you can tell from that first picture that there's plenty of room for it to park in the middle of the empty space.

Getting the shed crossed off the list was huge, but we have quite the to-do list of big and small things for outside the house. Here's how that list looks now:

-trim all bushes and trees on back property line
-trim bushes in front yard
-dig out drainage ditch in front yard
-replace shed
-paint trim on back door
-repaint back door
-hose holder in front yard
-hose and hose holder by back door
-black barn trim pieces for garage door
-relandscape front beds
-tree in front yard
-rock beds with landscaping around back of house
-fix fence
-power wash fence
-repaint fence
-plant flowers in deck flower boxes
-fix up wood storage area on deck
-build new wood storage/barn
-organize new shed
-reorganize garage
-move storage unit from garage to shed
-clean deck wood
-repaint deck and railings
-build garbage can storage
-level off shed's ramp
-paint shed's ramp
-bury drainage pipe in front yard
-new shed for bikes?
-driveway redirect of driveway to bike shed?
Eventually:
-new deck
-lattice under decking?
-new furniture for deck
-build permanent fire pit
-roof over portion of new deck

Yeah, we always seem to have a super long list for every part of our home. But it's fun...plenty to keep us busy, plan for and dream about. We were originally thinking that we'd replace the deck next summer, but we've both been rethinking that lately. We're going to paint the existing deck instead this summer, and buy a couple years to save and do the new deck right. Otherwise, we'll pick away at the list when we can, and eventually it will get done.