Building a 14*28 foot storage shed

[freedomlives]

For a decade, we've lived here in rural Slovakia with an old set of stalls for pigs and chicken coop right behind our house. Although the moment we don't have pigs, any that I kept were up in the field, never in those stalls next to the house. Likewise, after a couple of years, chickens got moved into a portable coop.
This week my inlaws were bored (they're retired) so my wife told them to tear it down.
We want a shed open on the front, for parking equipment and the kids toys, bikes, etc. One walled off room for the bikes and other more valuable, smaller equipment will be part of it.
I'm not sure yet if the back wall is going to need to be torn down, my father in law plans for it to stay, but I'm not certain of its integrity.

 

[EddieWalker]

I really enjoy seeing pictures of how things are done in other countries. I've never been to your part of the world, so it's all new to me what you do there. Where do you buy your supplies? Is there anything like Home Depot or Lowes there?

 

[freedomlives]

There are some stores like Home Depot and Lowes. The one that feels most like Home Depot, even down to having a lot of orange signs in the store, is Hornbach, which is a chain from Austria, there is also Obi from Germany, but altogether these stores total 17 locations in Slovakia, the nearest is 1.5 hours from us (since 12 years of corrupt socialist government couldn't complete the expressway system, even with money being thrown at it from the EU). So then there is a chain called Merkury Market, which is in the small city where my in-laws live, just 40 minutes from us. It is different from HD or Lowes. There is a good selection of hardware, some types of building materials and garden/lawn stuff, but then it has large amounts of show room type area for lighting fixtures, toilet/shower stuff, carpets, tiles, and a second floor with couches and kitchen cabinet sets.
But there still remains here lots of specialized stores. One will have just plumbing stuff, another just electrical, then paints, somewhere else metal and cement, and sometimes different combinations-- e.g. store with paints, household cleaning supplies and gardening supplies. The one thing that isn't common here is dimensional lumber. The chain stores do have boards, but usually for any sizeable project, I'll be buying from a lumber yard or directly from the sawmill, if I can wait a couple of weeks for them to saw the lumber for me. Here dimensions on wood are real, not the 2x4 that is actually 1.5"x3.5". These smaller stores often actually have better prices, perhaps from not having the overhead of needing large, well-lit, air-conditioned spaces.
Basically, if I'm doing any sort of sizeable project, I'll be visiting multiple stores. And when doing our roof, which is standing seam, which I fell in love with that style seeing it a lot here, compared to the typical asphalt shingles in Georgia, so I learned how to make it, I bought 500 pound rolls of sheet metal directly from the company that cuts them down from huge rolls from the US Steel plant in Košice.

 

[ovrszd]

Thanks for the pics and thread. Following your progress. Like Eddie, I really enjoy seeing/hearing how things are done around the World. My European experience was in Germany. Space seems to be a premium there. Very little waste.

When I look at your pics I'm studying the little details other than the subject of the pic.

 

[Sigarms]

There are some stores like Home Depot and Lowes. The one that feels most like Home Depot, even down to having a lot of orange signs in the store, is Hornbach, which is a chain from Austria, there is also Obi from Germany, but altogether these stores total 17 locations in Slovakia, the nearest is 1.5 hours from us (since 12 years of corrupt socialist government couldn't complete the expressway system, even with money being thrown at it from the EU). So then there is a chain called Merkury Market, which is in the small city where my in-laws live, just 40 minutes from us. It is different from HD or Lowes. There is a good selection of hardware, some types of building materials and garden/lawn stuff, but then it has large amounts of show room type area for lighting fixtures, toilet/shower stuff, carpets, tiles, and a second floor with couches and kitchen cabinet sets.
But there still remains here lots of specialized stores. One will have just plumbing stuff, another just electrical, then paints, somewhere else metal and cement, and sometimes different combinations-- e.g. store with paints, household cleaning supplies and gardening supplies. The one thing that isn't common here is dimensional lumber. The chain stores do have boards, but usually for any sizeable project, I'll be buying from a lumber yard or directly from the sawmill, if I can wait a couple of weeks for them to saw the lumber for me. Here dimensions on wood are real, not the 2x4 that is actually 1.5"x3.5". These smaller stores often actually have better prices, perhaps from not having the overhead of needing large, well-lit, air-conditioned spaces.
Basically, if I'm doing any sort of sizeable project, I'll be visiting multiple stores. And when doing our roof, which is standing seam, which I fell in love with that style seeing it a lot here, compared to the typical asphalt shingles in Georgia, so I learned how to make it, I bought 500 pound rolls of sheet metal directly from the company that cuts them down from huge rolls from the US Steel plant in Koå–¨ce.

Nothing to do with the topic at hand per your post, but may I ask how is your english so well written?

My father's parents came from the Baltic area and my mothers parents from the Ukraine, and you write in English as well as my parents could speak in their native language (both parents were both born in the US after thier parents came to the US in the early 1900's "off the boat"), which they could speak (native language) pretty well from growing up within their family and church vs English which was spoken outside their home in the US.

As mentioned, I'm really looking at your pictures and have other questions per the subject matter at hand.

 

[freedomlives]

I'm from Atlanta area, Georgia. I hope my English is good. Truth is, its gotten a bit awkward over the past decade of living here and speaking mainly with my Slovak wife (who perfected her English in England) and kids. I sometimes have to stop to remember the English word for something now...
Do you know from where in Ukraine your mother's parents came from? We live 3 miles from the border with Ukraine.

 

[freedomlives]

In-laws came again today, and tore down the rest of the walls, leaving just the back ones. Yesterday I took some of the old roof tiles to a castle being restored, where they want them both as roofing material, and broken tiles to make a brick dust that gets mixed with lime for a waterproof plaster.
I'll clean up remaining debris next week with the FEL, and evaluate the concrete that is there, but I feel pretty certain I'm going to take it up and pour all new. Still thinking through the details of the structure.

 

[freedomlives]

In many places in Europe, it seems urban sprawl is limited. It may also reflect in part a lower growth of population. And especially in older cities, indeed, there isn't much space, especially with lots of historical buildings that can't be torn down. Likewise streets in historical areas can often be quite tight, especially if you have five kids and drive an eight passenger van like us.

Another difference off the top of my head: here in Slovakia and Czechia, presumably other parts of Europe as well, having cars fitted with trailer hitches is far more common than in the SE USA (and, I guess the rest). Small trailer ownership, unbraked ones with about 1/2 ton capacity is pretty common. So when you want to move some furniture or building materials, you aren't trying to recall which friend drives a pickup, but which has a trailer (if you don't already have one). I wish small trailers were that common in the US, though at least near my mom's in Georgia I have two friends with pickups who can help me out as inevitably when visiting I'm fixing something around her house.

Thanks for the pics and thread. Following your progress. Like Eddie, I really enjoy seeing/hearing how things are done around the World. My European experience was in Germany. Space seems to be a premium there. Very little waste.

When I look at your pics I'm studying the little details other than the subject of the pic.

 

[Sigarms]

I'm from Atlanta area, Georgia. I hope my English is good. Truth is, its gotten a bit awkward over the past decade of living here and speaking mainly with my Slovak wife (who perfected her English in England) and kids. I sometimes have to stop to remember the English word for something now...
Do you know from where in Ukraine your mother's parents came from? We live 3 miles from the border with Ukraine.

Well, even being from Atlanta area, your English is still good I still remember my first visit to Conyers in the 90's. Walked into a gas station to get a drink and I as I was standing in line, it hit me that I didn't understand a single word ANYONE was saying (let's just say it was more than a southern dialect).

My mom's mother died in the late 70's (had two grandfathers on my moms side, as my grandmother remarried, but both grandfathers died in their 40's and 50's working for the coal mine, and never knew them). I'd need to dig up my uncles family tree history he had worked on we have hidden somewhere.

Honestly, I could of mispoken and it may not be the Ukraine area. Growing up, I was raised in the Carpatho Russian Orthodox church (Slavic was spoken during mass). Everyone on my moms side basically refered to our heritage as Eastern European (with the Soviet union at the time, made it even more fuzzier for me growing up to the speciffic area as the Uraine, and some other areas, even Slokavia were mentioned). My understanding is that side of the family were farmers and they migrated to the US in the early 1900's. My mothers hometown was basically a "coal mining town" in Pennylvania where a large amount of Eastern Europeans relocated to "off the boat" (seemed like every local community from Eastern Europe started their own church in town as well as there were multiple Russian churches in a very small town).

My mom took her mom on a trip to Eastern Europe to visit her side of the family before my grandmothers death, and still remember they had to have a government official accompany them on their trip. My grandmothers church was closed down at the time, but they were nice enough to let her go inside to see it.

Dad's side is easier. His parents came from Lithuania.

 

[freedomlives]

Well, even being from Atlanta area, your English is still good I still remember my first visit to Conyers in the 90's. Walked into a gas station to get a drink and I as I was standing in line, it hit me that I didn't understand a single word ANYONE was saying (let's just say it was more than a southern dialect).

My mom's mother died in the late 70's (had two grandfathers on my moms side, as my grandmother remarried, but both grandfathers died in their 40's and 50's working for the coal mine, and never knew them). I'd need to dig up my uncles family tree history he had worked on we have hidden somewhere.

Honestly, I could of mispoken and it may not be the Ukraine area. Growing up, I was raised in the Carpatho Russian Orthodox church (Slavic was spoken during mass). Everyone on my moms side basically refered to our heritage as Eastern European (with the Soviet union at the time, made it even more fuzzier for me growing up to the speciffic area as the Uraine, and some other areas, even Slokavia were mentioned). My understanding is that side of the family were farmers and they migrated to the US in the early 1900's. My mothers hometown was basically a "coal mining town" in Pennylvania where a large amount of Eastern Europeans relocated to "off the boat" (seemed like every local community from Eastern Europe started their own church in town as well as there were multiple Russian churches in a very small town).

My mom took her mom on a trip to Eastern Europe to visit her side of the family before my grandmothers death, and still remember they had to have a government official accompany them on their trip. My grandmothers church was closed down at the time, but they were nice enough to let her go inside to see it.

Dad's side is easier. His parents came from Lithuania.

I would think your maternal grandparents village was in Ukraine. There the Byzantine Catholic churches were not legal again until communism ended. In Czechoslovakia, the Byzantine Catholic church was made legal again in 1968 (many churches had been given to the Czechoslovak Orthodox Church, but basically all would have been open after 1968). The only exception I can think of, is that there is an area north of us that is now a national park and several villages were demolished in the 70s to make way for a reservoir. Some of the churches and cemeteries were left (not everything was flooded, just they didn't want people living on the shores of the reservoir, I guess so the water would be clean), so in that case, it would have been special to open the church.

Sorry for the late reply, we had the baptism of the baby shortly after I last wrote, and then things got busy, and there were delays last fall getting wood cut, till the sawmill was finally ready, but it was already so late in the fall that I didn't see that we would be building at that point. Now, within the next month, the boards will be cut and we'll continue, a bit complicated by the lockdowns that are continuing here.

In a bit of a throwback to the darker days of Communism, we illegally attended mass last week. The priests still celebrate, but they aren't allowed to have a congregation present, and people are forbidden from leaving their homes except certain reasons, which religious services aren't among them. But one priest we know had a mass scheduled on a day without it being live-streamed on the internet, so invited us and another family, and thankfully in our district the police aren't enforcing things so toughly, as otherwise we risked a 1600€ fine per person, and the parish a 20K€ fine. I never imagined I would be living in such a situation.