Concrete elephant feet and HiLo Jacks
We undertook the biggest challenge on our shed-o-vation yet- Leveling the Shed. The concrete below the shed has severely cracked and is sunk in, thus resulting in the shed being wayyyy out of level. Tom decided the best plan of action would be to use hiLo jacks to lift it, and then concrete elephant feet and half lap joints. He took his time to carefully cut all of the joints and boards by hand. Tom has been studying hand woodworking for a while now. We joke around that he is becoming a ninja elf since he likes the Japanese art of woodworking best. He sure was earning his elf ears that weekend!
This is what the finished project looks like.
The posts fit into the elephants feet, and the beams fit into the posts. This design helps with slipping and shifting. Tom jacked the shed up and actually crawled under the shed to place the feet and beams. I told him do not crawl under there! So what did he do? Yep. Ignored me and did it while I was out of town!
Here is Tom using his chisel the cut out the notches.
Tom started out by using a laser level to see how far out of whack the shed was. He then cut the posts so that some were longer than others depending on how out of level the area was.
These are the finished notched out posts. These were all done by hand using treated wood.
Tom used a pagoda style with his design approach.
Here are some of the beams used to level the shed in progress.
With having never taken on a project like this, it was not without it’s glitches. Some of the posts in the middle were a little high, so we will have to shim the side near the fence as it is “floating”, meaning not touching the beams or posts.
Here is another view of the posts and beams used to level the shed.
There were all kinds of nastiness under the shed! Someone even left their naughty unmentionable toys under there! That was really gross and hilarious…
The leveled Shed!
So the next steps we need to do on the Shed-o-vation is to build steps (now that it is a couple of feet off the ground!), put a skirt on her, wire her for electricity, hang, tape and mud the drywall, paint, including touch ups on the exterior paint, finish out the shelves and work benches/desks and flooring. It feels great to be making progress!!
Till next time…
Be creative and stay inspired!
