The frame was relatively easy to put together, although there were a few basic mistakes due to things I had overlooked.  I nailed the outside rails to the posts, only to realise that it was then going to be a little more difficult to put the inside rails on.  However, because of the non-exact nature of the milking bay, I didn’t want to risk building the frame in its entirety only to find that it didn’t fit between the posts.

The next step was to put the floor boards on top.

You will notice that we now have chains and a head bail in place – these were specifically for Daisy, but they have proved quite useful for other things as well.

I must say, this has to be the best job I’ve done in a long time!

So with the four corner holes dug, I then moved on to another four holes in the centre of each side.  Next came several more holes in the middle section to help provide additional support.  In the end I think it was a total of 12 holes.  I then had a crash course in securing in the posts (using concrete) and managed to get the frame attached to the posts and (mostly) level.

Next was the floor itself – two sheets of 19mm ply wood and another one cut up to fit in the “extra” spaces.  All in all I must say that it was a reasonable job.

Our neighbour then helped with putting up the shed – this turned out to be a lot harder than I expected, especially since the pieces didn’t seem to fit together as well as they probably should have.  Again, in hindsight, this may have been related to how the floor was prepared and the frame setup.  Then again, perhaps it was just the type of shed.

So, with the floor, walls, and roof in place, we now have a fully functional shed for extra storage.  Needless to say, it stayed that way for a few weeks before anything really got put in there.  By then the rain had started and I discovered that the shed perhaps wasn’t as water proof (or the floor as level) as I had hoped.  I thought that the rain was coming in the roof and dripping on to the floor, but careful inspection revealed that it was in fact running down the side of the shed and then leaking inwards!

In my infinite wisdom I went out and purchased some stuff to fill in the gaps and promptly applied it all around on the floor – on the outside!  Another few rainy days later and I realised the fault in my thinking – I now provided even more reasons for the water to run down the side of the wall and overflow inside the shed!  It was then that I came to understand why the plans had suggested a concrete floor and showed the outside 50mm (or so) sunken below the inner section – I’m not quite sure how I would do a wooden floor differently now, but I can see how easy it is homes to become leaky.

Ok, so the next attempt, and apparently more successful than the last, was to drill the holes in the lower wall guttering (they were already there, but now blocked underneath by the no more gaps stuff), through the gap stopper, into the plywood, and then chisel out part of the plywood so that the water can easily run away.  There’s still a bit of a leak in heavy rain, but I can live with that.

Ok, you might think that it’s all over now, but given that there is still a bit of a leak, I decided that we needed shelves in the shed.  I tried resurrecting an old free-standing bookshelf that was falling apart – it worked fine until I put one thing too many on it, then it all fell apart again.

Now we have the free-standing kitset ones which are available from Mitre 10 or Bunnings.  These appear to be working well enough for the moment – reasonably easy and quick to assemble, and they hold a lot.  My only problem with them is that they are a bit narrow.

I’m not sure when (or even if) there will be another shed installed.  Next time I will definitely be doing a number of things differently – not the least of which is going for a different manufacturer!

The first step, of course, was the frame – this turned out to be a little cumbersome to build, but with a bit of effort from both Sharon and myself, we managed to put this together.

The next step was to put some sort of bracing in place so that this frame doesn’t fall to pieces!  We managed to do this with the baling twine we had from the hay we got at the start of Winter.

Finally, we used a tarp that my brother left up here before he moved to Christchurch at the end of last year.  This has been placed over the top of the dome to provide the chooks with some protection from the wind and rain.

The tarp is secured to the surrounding ground with tent pegs and to some of the trees by cord.

I started off by planning out the location of the posts, then the neighbour kindly used his post hole borer to drill the holes for me – I really hate digging holes!

After using concreting to secure the posts, I then used some 100×50 as the top rails.

This was more or less the finishing point, at least at this stage.  However, I did decided to add some rails at the front in order to add a head bail and provide access for calves in the future.  Here’s the new finished product.

Little did I know when I ordered the shed (in October 2008) that there was more to it than just linking a whole heap of panels together – apparently we needed some sort of flat platform on which to build it!  After several discussions with people who know, combined with my lack of desire to dig a flattish section into a gently sloping hill, I decided it would be best to put in a wooden floor.

Being the definite non-builder that I am,  I headed off to the local Carters store to get what I needed – amazingly enough the floor cost about half the price of the shed!  Even then, I later found that I still didn’t have everything yet.

It was December 2008 by this time and I was starting to realise that I had to get this floor built so that I could get on with the shed, which had now been sitting in a box for over a month.  Further discussions with people in the know found me digging a number of holes for posts – this turned out to be much harder than expected; for starters, I really don’t like digging holes.

It’s taken until mid-January, but I have now put in 13 posts, built the frame, and laid the plywood floor.  I have learnt many things, including how to mix concrete, how to square a frame, and how to procrastinate (Ok, so I already knew how to do the last one).

The next week or two should (hopefully) see me constructing the shed so we can finally start using it.  I’ve had a quick look at the instructions and it doesn’t sound as simple as it looks, so fingers crossed.