Screws are spendy, Glue is forever!

Cindy, whatever happened to all those pallets and salvage wood?

my pallet stash

Oh.. you mean THESE pallets and salvage wood?    Funny you should ask!

So I took a week off...   NOT that I had any place to go, or any specific thing to do.. but the week before Labor day effectively stretches into ten full days of dicking off with only 5 hitting the leave bank.. so that works out pretty nice for me!

HOWEVER we now have a LOT of uninterrupted time on my hands, and per usual, a limited budget.   What to do, what to do?

random plywood and boards

Well, my side patio is loaded with pallets.. and scrap lumber.   And it isn't going anywhere on its own power..  So I decided to build a Shanty.

And what exactly IS a shanty Cindy?

Wikipedia says this:  Shanty may refer to: Ice shanty, a portable shed placed on a frozen lake; Shanty, an irregular, low-cost dwelling ...  

I'm coming up shy on frozen lakes, but I've got low-cost in the bag!  

Urban dictionary says this: A shanty is a poorly made house in which one can dwell, usually made out of scavenged materials.

Now, keep in mind I am not planning on dwelling...  reality is.. I'm not planning at all!   PLANS?  We don't need no stink'n plans!  

Wikipedia offered me up a pic of this ice shanty..

As I drafted this blog, I searched on shanty to either confirm my definition of shanty, or come up with a better one.   I came across THIS pic..   

Yuppers, Shanty totally matchs what I had in my head and now have in my yard..    Minus the 5 gallon bucket roof..  I LIKE that...  maybe next time!

SO how'd you start the project Cindy?

Exhibit 1

Well.. initially I'd gathered up pallets because Etsy is chock-full of cool pallet projects.   And I love a good cool project.   But as I stared at them, I got to wondering if I could use them as the lower half of my structure.   And then I though "well hell.. it's a shanty.. you can do whatever you want"... 

After some digging around in the various  wood stashes, I realized I had a couple of 60" -ish lengths of 2x8 boards.. Yay ME!   Then I thought.. hmmm, I wonder how big of a base I could get out of that.   So gathered up the 2 longest, and trimmed them to equal lengths...  repeated it with the other two, and glued/screwed em together..   Editors note.. I NEVER EVER want to take apart something I've constructed... I have a bit of a Liquid Nails Construction Adhesive fetish and DO let my passion run free during random builds.

So I made a rectangle!   Please note Exhibit 1.   It wasn't going to be huge, but it was a fair start as far as I was concerned.   However, now that I have this frame.. what the hell to do with it?    Hmmm, I HAD 4 pier blocks.. but had used 2 - so off to the hardware store for 2 more.  I think that was a total of about $5 with tax.

The Base

Back home, I cut two 4x4 treated posts in half, positioned the pier blocks and with some difficulty and less skill, and got the frame screwed to the blocks.   Sadly, I must report the right front 4x4 lists hard to the left, but I wasn't terribly concerned at the time - as I never really strive for perfection in ANY project I do.

However, I DID want to use what I had on-hand, so I ran to the basement and brought up the joist hangers I knew I'd kept for some reason, and dragged out every 2x4 I could find in my various lumber piles. 

basic structure in place

I was feeling pretty good about myself right about now... I have what CLEARLY appears to be the base of something, and it was solid.   So I skin it in random pieces of 3/4" plywood found in the 'up against the house' stash, and then drag over the equal-sized pallets from the pallet stack. 

Although far from perfection, I was relatively pleased with the results and called it quits for the night.


So where do you go from here Cindy?  That's a short structure.


Well all along, I knew I was going to use 2x4s to build the upper half of the structure.   I don't live in an area that suffers gale force winds and to my knowledge, there would never be a troupe of tap-dancing pygmies up on the roof... so this should suffice.

Awhile back I scored six wood-frame salvage windows. Since this is a potting/growing shanty, I believe windows are mandatory.   Although I intended to use all 6 of those windows, the design ended up allowing for 3, with one from my actual house going in the front wall. 

open air version

Framing had to accommodate the windows, while keeping an eye on my limited number of remaining 2x4s.   Sadly, the number was indeed not enough, and a trip to the lumber store was required.   Eight 2x4s at 2.59 each is 20.72 plus tax.   Now I'm up to almost $30 invested in my shanty.  

In standard Cindy Project ADD fashion, I got the frame structure up, and ran out of boards.. so moved on to the side cladding.  I had a TON of 1x6 boards and even more length of 1x2.  In order to stretch the coverage, after doing the back exterior wall in nothing but 1x6s, I decided to insert 1x2s between each row on the rest of the walls.  The small front wall was a fully-intact mini-pallet already clad with plywood.  WinWin!

a REALLY trimmed door with a random window tossed in

The next morning with my new 2x4s, I finished off adding 2 more to the roof structure - even notching the back ends so it rested on the cross piece.   WoOT WOOT! Time for the sub-roof material! 

This consisted of a bunch of 1/2" plywood squares with grooves cut in them.   By this time, I'd run out of star-head screws, and simply pounded them in with twisty nails and locked them with Liquid Nails.   Those roof panels are staying PUT. 

Another trip into the small storage shed and I dragged out a 2' wide door I'd held onto forever...   that got SIGNIFICANTLY hacked down... and then for giggles, I cut an opening into it in order to wedge yet another salvage window in.  I figured now that I have a enclosed shanty, perhaps I'd like a breeze at some point.   Window opens!

Finally, I scored just a few cedar fence boards free (AND delivered) off of a local womens sales group, and decided to use THOSE to clad the front panel of the shanty.

Quitting time came early that day, and my final move for the day was to trim the roof materials so it wasn't quite so jagged and messy.    Turns out it was solid enough that the roof held all of this girl AND her powertools!

It also gave me a great view into the neighbor's yard... I thought FOUR chickens was the max we could have in town?  

The view from the roof also showed me, for a chick with no plan and less knowledge, MY shanty was far more attractive than the neighbor's chicken coop structure.  I was feeling pretty badass by now.

 

Now what Cindy... a plywood roof with grooves and duct tape?

 No!  I had a plan...  okay, I didn't have a plan, but I had an idea that I could find proper roofing material, and shazaaM!   it happened! 

Saturday I was forced to take a break to drive North for a funeral.   It just so happens my Dad had some salvage sheet metal roofing material.  After staring at it for a bit, I decided it SHOULD fit in the Audi.  Seats got popped down, trunk rearranged and I came home with 3 pieces.

Last stages (to date) included unearthing some redwood stain in the shed left by the previous homeowner 4+ years ago.

East view

South view

not quite for a brick shithouse.. but close

In future days, I hope to add a small porch like the Ice Shanty photo'd above... and perhaps a brick walk from the patio with free bricks I brought home from Pullman one day.... actually, it took 4 trips to Pullman... despite the quattro rating, the Audi really wasn't up to hauling all the bricks in a single run.

Ultimately, I still have a few pallets (compost cage coming up soon) and a few spare boards left over.   I'm about $50 total into the shanty as far as materials out-of-pocket.   I know the porch will certainly add to that cost.. but for now?

Bogey's shanty town has its first structure.  Casa Bogey's Shanty Annex :)

Buddy Michael Ray says it's an outhouse.. first person caught poohing in there will be banished forever.   Others have called it the doghouse or time-out shack.   Whatever the case, *I* built it!