Two-and-a-half years after the tornado that hit our farm destroyed my large machine shed, I can say it’s now not only completely restored, but in fact is much better than before. Sometimes you just need a tornado in your life in order to break out of where you are!
2015 started with the shell of the shed completed and lights wired up in the new construction portion, but still with a dirt floor and hay bales filling the gap under the North roll-up door in order to keep the cats out. The bales promptly froze to the ground, so it was a major chore every time I needed to get a tractor out!
Gutters went up on the shed (plus the farmhouse and other machine shed) in the late Spring – given the very wet year we had, they were welcome.
And a very generous work bonus provided for the big concrete pour, which included two outside pads big enough to park the car on for washing without splattering dirt back up on the clean rocker panels. I did some landscaping around the concrete sideway we had poured up to the house as well.
It didn’t take long to fill it back up!
Over Christmas break, I cut in and installed a second entry door next to the North roll-up door. Earlier in the Autumn, I had installed a remote control industrial opener on the East-facing door, making the process of parking the car much easier when going to or coming from work each day.
The week after Christmas, I finally finished wiring up outlets around the perimeter. The final connection was to the light under the overhead shelf where I’ve been storing Volkswagen parts for years – that light had not been on since the tornado struck, so it was great to see it illuminated again!
Other work on the interior included insulating the front entry room area and hanging plywood on the walls and ceiling followed by trim and paint.
Late in the year, I finally got a composite vinyl tile floor laid and built a nice saw table along the East wall – this will be my dedicated saw room (mainly in order to better contain the dust created).
I’m still working on reorganizing the main heated shop area, as I had pulled everything out to be able to finally deep-clean and mop out the remaining mud and crud from when the tornado hit.