Moving my dad's shed. (Advice? Roll on pipes? Furniture dollies?)

[Xist]

I feel like I must have updated this somewhere, but I haven't worked on it since New Year's Eve 2020.

I swear that I emptied the shed and my brother put everything back again, but at this point, I don't remember for sure.

I set up Dad's old tent a couple of weeks ago and in all of my years in the Army and Boy Scouts, this is the worst tent that I have ever used. It doesn't stay up until you stake it down, the tent has a mesh ceiling that is always open, so you need the awning, but that only extends 6" down the sides, and there aren't any guy lines or anything to keep the awning over the poles in the corner between the roof and the sides.

There are aluminum poles in the front and fiberglass in the roof.

The awning keeps sliding over the poles, creating a gap between the roof and the sides, so I kept going out and finding puddles inside.

I bought a tarp and slid it in between.

The awning extends a good distance in front of the door, but that doesn't stay out on its own, either. I wrapped the guy line around a big brick, but it is already inconvenient to have that stick out several feet. I don't want to stake it down and make it semi-permanent, but each time I go out the brick slid in and the front edge is leaning against the tent--if the pole didn't pop out again.

I fixed that a couple of times and told my brother to leave it alone, but apparently he has fixed it (at least once).

I don't know where I mentioned my immediate to-do list.

Something about notes and progress reports?

All that I managed to do on Saturday was buy another drywall bit.

I checked on-line to see how much more I would pay running to the nearby Ace instead of all of the way to Lowe's or Home Depot and maneuvering a warehouse.

All of them were charging $4!

However, Harbor Freight sells them 2 for $1.

I really hope to not need additional bits. Besides, I have another one somewhere!

I needed to ask 2 employees for help finding it.

Mom was gone for hours grocery shopping and I was about to go out and work on the shed when I realized that my brother should have eaten already, so I asked him what he wanted for dinner, and he asked for Panda Express, so i pulled up their menu on my 43" screen and had him point to what he wanted. I ordered and we were leaving to get it when Mom came home, so I left him to unload the groceries she bought since Xistday while I ran to get his dinner.

Panda Express is in front of Walmart, which also sells $4 drywall bits, Home Depot is on the other side of Walmart, and Lowe's is across the street, so at least I didn't drive to that area twice?

By the time I got him his dinner it was getting dark, so I spent altogether too long finding my headlamp.

I have others, but that is the brightest, and I just bought rechargeable batteries for it!

Normally I shower after working on projects and draw his bath while I get dressed.

I like saving the 2 gallons of water it would take to warm up.

However, I really wanted to work on the shed, so I ran the water into a bucket until it warmed up, but then my brother showed me the empty box of garbage bags, so I took him to Family Dollar.

They only had scented and generic ones, so I took him to Walmart.

At least I didn't drive to that area 3 times that day?

We found the bags right away, but he dragged me around the store forever! First he wanted to put random products back.

What is a Walmart run without seeing tons of inventory in the wrong place?

Then apparently he wanted to buy himself something nice, but he couldn't find anything nice enough. He dragged me up and down every aisle of the toy section repeatedly before looking at the swivel clips, and finally deciding on his fourth or fifth copy of "Mr. Brown Can Moo."

When we finally got home it was too late to work on the shed.

[Xist]

All the Alaskan told me yesterday was that her daughters push her to the edge of the bed and steal her covers.

I didn't dignify that with a response.

I tried to figure out stuff before starting my notes. I don't know that I got anywhere. I found some interesting videos in the process, and I shared most of them here.

Distractions.

I got to bed late and woke up at 0540 to wait for the Alaskan to drop off her girls maybe.

I wish that I knew ahead of time if they were coming.

I decided to go back to bed at 06, but they showed up just before then. I asked the younger girl why she was carrying her shoes and she responded "I don't want to make Mom late."

Why didn't she put on her shoes before they got here?

The elder one said she needed a charger, so I lent her mine, and I told them to get some sleep, but they just talked and played on their phones.

I don't know how many people can fall asleep in that situation, plus at least one of them kept receiving messages.

I heard many notifications.

The elder one messaged me at 0030 saying she couldn't sleep and kept saying that she was going to sleep in class.

There is no reason the grumpy Veteran couldn't sleep!

Apparently the mom messaged me while I was tossing and turning saying that she didn't know if the elder daughter would be going to school today because she was tired.

She wasn't staying here!

Exhausted and grumpy I drove them to school. The younger one asked why I wasn't talking to her mom.

I just said that I responded to her messages, but I didn't know what to say about the girls stealing her bedding.

Now the mom is saying we need to talk.

No we don't, but I think that I will tell her "I need to sell my Accord by April 15th to pay taxes, let me know what you decide."

I don't, but I am not letting her drive my car for free forever, nor am I dealing with another payment plan.

I didn't think that I would be able to sleep, so I went to work on the shed.

Remember the mud on the bottom of the shed?

I went and found a wire brush and removed what I could, at least in the last gap. I need to clean out 2 more gaps, but I needed to remove the rest of the rotten side 2x4 in order to get the temporary boards in there.

I need to find my dremel and cut the nails flush to the MDF.

I need to jack up the back of the shed in order to replace those 2x4s, which will be cramped.

Parts of those boards crumble in my hands and I guess that rain dripping off the bottom of the shed caused that side board to rot.

I don't remember the other side being bad, but I need to check!

There is damage to the MDF, but it seems tolerable.

When I paid $500 to move the Alaskans from the valley I used the truck to move a pressure-treated 16' 2x4.

I hope that I don't need a second!

[freebeard]

Whew! I've been in suspense since 07-28-2021, 12:27 AM.

I reviewed your speech-to-text with Vee' s This Week in Stupid in the background.

Maybe tomorrow?
______

Whoops! One minute delta.

... Why don't you assign pseudonyms? It's hard to follow 'the Alaskans elder daughter'.

[freebeard]

In the intervening [almost] year, I've been following Stewart Hicks. He put this one up on 20210603:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmCq_qrUSfw

Makes one want a charred timber frame

[Xist]

No, I wrote all of that on the computer.

[freebeard]

Ten fingers or two?

[Xist]

I have been a pretty good typist since first getting a computer in 1989, although, like with everything, I make more mistakes than I would like.

The Alaskan didn't think I should have a problem dropping everything to pick up her daughters for the first time on my birthday and resented that I didn't act like she was a healthy, responsible, and caring woman.

The thing is, for a week or two I haven't been helping her, I have been helping her daughters, who didn't choose this life.

Was I supposed to ditch her when not only were they not ready to move when she said they would be, but weren't even awake?

I needed to ask to reschedule a session!

I missed that session when she ran out of Mom's house crying over needing to get a mailbox to establish proof of residency and she committed to going to the post office to try to get a mailbox when I went to see my regularly-scheduled client, but just hung out with her girls in a tiny motel room for 3 days until I got a mailbox, mailed her a postcard, and then hand-delivered her proof of residence.

I rarely get to bed before midnight, but I rarely need to wake up before 8. My family always gets to bed well after midnight and may sleep in until 10 or later.

I woke up after 4-5 hours of sleep and watched the girls because they are nice kids.

They don't deserve to spend 4 hours a day on a bus, not when they get a ride to school.

The Alaskan resented that on top of taking care of her daughters, I didn't put far more effort into a dead and doomed relationship than she was.

She didn't talk to me on Xistday. How dare I not talk to her?!

I was only able to sleep 4 hours yesterday before watching the girls. The elder one stayed up all night playing on her phone and when I expected all of us to take naps, they played on their phones and talked, so while I was trying to rest I heard 2 little girls talking, and constant notifications.

I don't know why my brother wakes up and lays down on the couch, but he does, and I needed to ask them to quiet down so he could sleep.

He ended up taking a huge nap, so clearly it wasn't quiet enough for them.

I took the girls to school, used a wire brush on the last foot of the bottom of the shed, and ripped out the rest of the 2x4 on the left side of the shed.

Then I tossed and turned for hours and finally got a couple hours of sleep.

Would you believe that each and every one of these activities just proved what a vile and terrible man I am to the Alaskan?

She said that we needed to talk in-person and showed up when I was waiting to see my one teleclient. She left during the session and messaged me that since I refused to talk to her she is going to make her daughters ride the bus 4 hours a day.
I asked why she would do that to her girls and she wrote "Wrong response."
I replied "Clean out my car and return it by the end of the week. I'm not playing your games anymore."
She started ranting and raving including "I don't play games! You play games" and I responded "Return my car by the end of the week or I will report it stolen."
She kept ranting and raving and, apparently, made her daughters ride the bus for 2 hours this morning.

[Xist]

I went to bed before midnight, couldn't fall asleep, and remembered that I left my drill and dremel in the backyard.
It was raining.
I grabbed them and laid back down, but remembered that I left out an extension cord, which was plugged in, so I reeled it in and put it away.
Then there was a loud bang, I got up to see what it was, and Mom said "Go back to bed. It was just thunder."
I finally fell asleep wondering what an emotionally unstable school bus driver in possession of my car might do.
Then my alarm went off to watch the girls.
I wouldn't watch them for anything right now.
I tried to get back to sleep while wondering what an emotionally unstable school bus driver in possession of my car might do.

For some reason I can't sleep!

I finally looked up how to drywall corners and it looks like I need to add framing:

So, cut out 3.5" of insulation, cut 2 2x4s to fit, and attach them in each corner?

I don't look forward to it, but it should work out okay.

There are tons of drywall tips in here, including to have joints between studs, attach each end to a 1x6 backer board, and bend the end of each board to create a void for mud instead of tapering it so it isn't noticeable.

So, I am supposed to do that instead of insulation?

[Xist]

Is it better or worse that it stopped raining and started snowing?
The tent has a terribly-designed awning, so I put a tarp in between, but the wind blew the end of the tarp on top of the tent, so snow will melt and get around the awning and the tarp.

I need to run a cargo strap from the tarp to the base of the tent.

[Piotrsko]

If it's framed conventional, it doesn't need backers. There's wood in the proper places. You can use pretty much anything that will hold a screw: 1by, 2by, plywood, angle, tube, what have you. If you're cheap, you can just float the corners which is how sheetrockers sheet ceilings as long as you dont exceed 24".