The Tuff Shed

When we bought the country house we knew that we were going to have to build or have a building built for storage, a shop and possibly a business.  We tried to get bids on steel buildings similar to our house, but they wanted to do a site survey and at that time we hadn't found our place yet.  We looked at one property in Arkansas that had a really nice shop building, we really liked the land too...the house was a wreck though.  We were trying to find a house with 5 acres and a shop and keep it around the $65,000 range. We didn't really want a mobile home/trailer house.  This was a very old trailer house on a solid foundation that had been added onto.  It had been on the market about a year. We actually liked parts of it, but it needed a lot of work structurally so we passed on it. But we really wanted a shop the size of the shop on this property.

We actually made offers on a few places, but the offers were lower than what the owners were willing to accept.  We found one place in Oklahoma that we really considered, it had multiple out buildings, a large shop with a bathroom and a separate storage area.  We couldn't get into one building because the realtor had no key for it.  We learned that that is a bad thing.  The house was a metal building, we believe that the owner must have done a lot of the work themselves.  There were wires running through the kitchen cabinets, someone had stolen the outside AC unit, the master bathroom was very large, but it had issues...the plumbing was visible, I mean the pipes were on the outside of the walls...and the bathtub and shower were off the floor by at least a foot.  It was like everything was done after the building was erected and they did a really bad job.  We offered half of what they were asking on that one...it would have taken a lot of money to get the plumbing fixed.

Anyway, when we bought this house there were two 20'x20' concrete slabs already poured.  So we figured we could build a shop on one of those.  Even after we bought the country house we couldn't get an estimate on a metal building being site built without a site survey.  But we finally got an idea of the cost of a metal building that we could put together ourselves.  We had so much work to do on the house we started looking at the buildings at the home improvement stores and decided on a Tuff Shed.  We just had them place it on one of the slabs.

You can order a Tuff Shed on line, you can pick out everything windows doors, paint colors, one or two stories...so we did.  They could build it in a couple of days they said...but it was rainy season.  We had problems with this too.  We got a call from the installers a week later, they are on there way...no problem we said, we will be at the house waiting.  They didn't show up on time, actually they had a breakdown and they called and wanted us to come help them or call for a tow or something like that. Heck we didn't know anybody to call...after several conversations and a call to Tuff Shed, they got some help.  At almost dark a truck pulls up and someone starts throwing building parts on the ground and leaves.  It rained that night, we went out and looked at what was there, windows laying in the grass, shingles, some siding.  We called Tuff Shed, everything is wet and scattered all over, we weren't happy...we are worried that the decking may fall apart.

We got a call from the installers, they had to get their truck repaired and then they would be out, they came out and had to unload more wood and siding.  They did get a lot of the frame built, but because they didn't get there until later it was not done.  It rained hard the next day, it was cold..they worked in the rain.  My husband and I were flabbergasted when they started painting in the rain, it just kept washing off and all over the ground, the slab, the driveway.  We called Tuff Shed and complained.  The next day the weather was better.  It took them a week to build the Tuff Shed, they came back out to repaint some areas after we complained.  Crew looked at it when they finished, but after they left and everything dried out we noticed problems with it, they never have fixed them all.  It is two storied, it has stairs, some of the wood is cracked on the stairs, the railing is not attached well, there was a hole in the wall and there are nails that missed the mark in a lot of places, wood that was miss cut and looks too short for it's intended purpose.  But those are my opinions and I am very critical with an eye for details.  I have learned since living out here in the country, you live with bugs, that when you have sandy soil and no grass in spots...dirt and mud will get in the house, and there is nothing you can do about it, there is nothing perfect, and you have to live with functional for a purpose...even if it is ugly...and I am not talking about the Tuff Shed.  I think it looks pretty good.

The Tuff Shed