One of the first things you need to do as a homeowner is obtain insurance for your new home. Before finalizing your premium, some carriers like to perform a survey of your property to ensure everything is in order. Well that’s exactly what happened to us, but the results of the inspection were anything but expected.
Performed a few weeks after closing on our new place, a third-party home inspector hired by our insurance provider showed up at our door. By this point in our home ownership experience, we had neither begun to tear into the projects listed on this site nor completed moving everything over from our apartment in the city. Our home was the emptiest it had ever been. So it came as a surprise when, one week later, our insurance agent phoned to report of their inspector’s findings. Most things were, as expected, in order. The floor plan was accurate, square footage within deviation, but one thing stuck out to them. Behind our home, in the far corner of our backyard, sits a pretty impressive shed on its own slab foundation. What had the inspector discovered and our insurance ordered us to fix? A small patch of of rotting trim surrounding the door to the shed. You can see the damage in the photo below.
Well, sure, we’ll fix that. It was not exactly on the top of our todo list, but we would get to it soon, we said. A year went by and other projects took priority. Eventually, we set our thoughts to our lawn and the many unhealthy flora contained within. During one fall cleanup, another sad event transpired near our shed. A single pane of glass had fallen out and shattered on the ground and it appeared that more were soon to follow. So, we set off to Home Depot with Hannah’s father to begin on replacing the window (a non-standard size, of course) and the rotten trim.
The phrase “while we’re at it” has been the prelude to many a downward spiral when it came to ideas surrounding our home. The shed, which our nephew somehow managed to title “Auntie Hannah’s Magical Shed” while playing outside one day, was no exception. While we were at it, Auntie Hannah had decided it would be nice if the siding of the shed matched the cedar siding of the main house. Rich agreed and, truth be told, the entire process ended up being one of our easier afterthought projects. While Rich and his father hammered away at the siding one afternoon, Hannah and her mother-in-law dug away at some overgrown rhododendron taking over our backyard. The landscaping is a story for another day, but we think the new shed is a whole lot more magical.
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