This story starts with a wooden spoon. I make them. A lot of them. As a hobby. So many, that every Christmas I have to do a craft fair or two to get rid of them. This last year, Heidi bought one, and when she got home she found my Magical Playhouses business card, a la cross-branding marketing. Just so happens, she was looking for someone to build her a new potting shed in Port Townsend. “Wow! Local work!” I thought.

So, I popped over and after hashing out a cedar timber frame design with a matching hip roof clad in iron-ox corrugated metal to match her roof, I started work. Now this was back in January, and some days I looked like this:

But other days looked like this:

After I had the cedar timber frame up, Heidi had a bit of a freak-out over it being too big. Of course, we had taped it out together and I had sent her scaled drawings, but seeing something in the flesh is different. So I scratched my head and proposed that we move the wall the door is on inwards, creating a sort of sheltered roof overhang. Heidi went for it and now when I look at, it looks like we had designed it that way the whole time.

Except for that minor hiccup, everything was going smoothly until Covid19, when it all came to a grinding halt. Now, I was taught to never ask a woman her age, but I know Heidi is in her 70s, maybe even 80s. She acts like she’s 35, but the virus doesn’t care about that. Even before our state shutdown, I started feeling uncomfortable going over to her backyard. So I got the potting shed to a point to where I felt like she could at least use it, and then I got out of there. And for the last three months this is as close as I’ve gotten.

But the good news is that I heard from her today and she’s managed to get it wired and plumbed, so she’s ready for me to come back and finished it. So we’re talking about when I’ll come over and when she’s going to get out of town for a few days!