As my shed continues to be built (walls, gables and roof cross members finished), I continue to come up with testing parallels.

  • Automation is not always best tactic. For example, a drill is great for wall pieces, but sucks in the corners due to it’s length. An old fashioned, manual screwdriver excels at this task.
  • Different activities require different tools
  • Experiment on the most efficient way to do something early in the process. I discovered, quite by accident, the trick to making wall panels align properly. Were I do it again, I would consciously seek to figure out the technique before moving forward.
  • Look at completed activities from multiple angles to ensure the results are as you expect. I installed one of the back panels upside down. In the early morning shade it ‘looked’ right from the inside, but it was only after I went around back to pick up a dropped screw I noticed the problem.
  • Certain activities can be run in parallel. If I had a second drill the wall panels would have gone up twice as fast as my wife could have been using it on one side while I did the other.
  • Don’t rush, you will make dumb mistakes. Some things take exactly as long as they take and not a second sooner
  • Just because something is ‘free’ doesn’t mean you actually need it. We bought this particular shed partly because it came with a ‘free’ base kit. Had I thought it through I would have realized I didn’t need it because of the platform I built for it. So not I have a soggy (it was in the rain) box filled with a shed base I have no use for.