For the last four weekends, my dad and I have been rebuilding my shed. Not rebuilding from scratch. No, the frame was fine (mostly). Replacing floorboards, siding, trim, etc. has been the name of the game for about the month. About $1200 and 200 hours later, I’ve finally finished.

This ain’t no punk ass shed, either. 12′ by 8′ and 8′ tall, this thing’s a beast. I think it meant a lot to my dad that I asked for his help. He used to be a shop teacher, and 30 years ago, he and his fellow shop teacher, along with their students, built this shed for my grandparents. It was also probably the most time I’ve spent with him in the last five years, and the first time we’ve actually really done anything together since we moved out six years ago.

30 long years. Yup, it held up that long. It’s needed some attention and TLC since we bought the house, but…I mean come on it was a lot of work and I didn’t want to do it. With the baby coming, I finally decided to bite the bullet and get it finished.

Looks pretty good, doesn’t it? It’s not painted, of course, but everything else is done. I’ve got a shelf inside built up to hold a variety of nicks and knacks. We’ve even got a window in there (requested by my wife, and as the old saying goes, happy wife happy life).

The thing I’m most happy to report is that there were zero injuries during the making of this shed.

Until the last five minutes of working on it.

I have to take off my shoes to count how many times I almost fell of that goddamn ladder. Tearing out sheets of plywood from 20-year-old treated 2x8s should have destroyed my back. I used my table saw more for this project than anything before. And the amount of plunge cuts I made with a circular saw has got to be some sort of record.

Instead of seriously injuring myself in any way that would give a cool scar or a neat story I could tel 20 years down the line, I merely slipped off a screw and drove a fresh, sharp phillip’s head bit straight into my index finger.

Did it hurt? Yeah. Did it bleed? A lot.

Of all the ways I could’ve straight up died over the last two weeks, I had to render my index finger completely useless.

It has been zero days since our last injury.