Sugar Tin Pies

Why am I featuring a picture of a pie in the middle of my shed build project?  This was my reward for the end of this phase of work.  Sugar Tin Pies (@sugartinpies) is a new cottage industry that just started up in Cincinnati by Cassandra Jones, a person I met at one of my client’s conferences.  This is her 6″ pie, the perfect size for me.  I’ll get three servings out of it.

I was looking forward to the weekend, so I could put a full day into the project.  Rain was coming in the afternoon on Saturday and expected to rain all day Sunday.  Bone head move on my part, I decided to start the day installing the drip edge followed by the roofing paper.  Well the drip edge actually also goes on top of the fascia.  I’m not sure why or how I managed to skip several pages in the plans, but I wasted valuable time and will have to remove it when I do get to the fascia.  Fortunately only a waste of about $10 in material.

Per the plans, I ordered 6 sheets of T1-11 siding.  I cut the two front pieces from the same sheet.  The two sides were a sheet each.  The back would take two full sheets, so I realized I didn’t have enough for the two doors.  In hindsight I should have cut a door and one front piece from the same sheet, it would have been nice if the plans told you to do that. This was a bit more expensive mistake as it meant buying another sheet at $35.  I got it from Home Depot, so they could cut it for me otherwise I couldn’t get it home.  I had them cut it to the exact length of 70 1/2″, but only cut enough width that allowed it in my car.  I did the fine tune cutting at home.  In route to home I picked up my pie, but Cassandra also made me some spaghetti sauce.  I could smell the rain coming, so if I had any hope of getting the sides up I needed to work fast.

The front pieces are only 18″ wide, so very easy to handle and nail up.  The plans called for 2″ 6d nails, so I had to bag my little friend and pull out my hammer.  Nails every 8″ on each stud.  The side pieces took a bit more work.  I really could have used another person, but I pulled out my house jack and that worked amazingly well.  So well that I jacked the roof rafter up.  I expected it to stop/give resistance once the top met the Voerhang plate, but it didn’t.  The ease in which that rafter came up was concerning.  One bad storm with gusty winds and I could see my shed roofless, so I decided to reinforce the connections with 4″ Timberlock screws that I had.  Now the two extra rafters Bill had me add had a purpose.  For the back side I was able to easily add the screws into them as the were offset from the wall stud.  The front was a bit more complicated because of the additional support beams and angles to reach the right part of the rafter.  In the case where I could drill straight up, but had three boards to go through, I drilled a 1/2″ hole through the bottom board.  That would allow the screw to go into the rafter by at least an inch.  For the rafter where an angle was involved.  I drilled at an angle and then inserted the screw.  I could see the rafters drawing up tight.  This was a very smart add on.

I got the left side and front up with sunny skies.  The right side up in steady rain.  The back would have to wait for another day.  The beauty of this rain is it forced me to stop working at decent time to eat and I had not worked to the point of exhaustion that day.

The main reason I lost so much weight on my house restoration project is I was too tired to cook, or stopped to late to order delivery, or it was too late to eat if I did (I don’t like to go to bed on a full stomach). Thanks to Cassandra I had dinner waiting.  My cousin Alex had stopped by to bring me face trimmers for my dogs and she was kind enough to stay long enough to cook some pasta noodles for me.  I just had to heat up some garlic rolls.  I’m not sure how I got to age 55 without ever having a significant other in my life, but I sure hope Mr. Right can cook and would enjoy preparing a meal for me to eat at the end of a hard days work.  The sauce was fabulous, hearty with a slight kick.  I ate it while watching The Way Back on Amazon Prime (not as good as I hoped it would be).

It was only about 8:30p, so I decided to wait on that first slice of pie and go in the basement to work on the doors.  I used my straight edge method again and got the width made.  If you haven’t figured out yet the shed colors will match the house colors, right down to yellow doors.  I had about a half quart of the yellow left and same of wood primer.  I knew it wouldn’t be enough for both doors, but buying quarts would be cheaper than gallons.  On my full stomach of pasta I lost all track of time.  I got both doors built, but ran short on primer.  It was after midnight at this point, too late to enjoy pie.

Sunday I ran to Sherwin Williams to get another quart of Harvest Yellow and Ace Hardware in Clifton for a quart of primer (no way was I paying SW prices for a shed door-I had used up some Kilz 2 primer I had in basement, so bought more of that, $10).  I applied the primer and let it dry while I worked on a client’s project.  Cassandra called to let me know she had made me another treat, a garlic cheddar, tomato, and spinach quiche.  I’ll have a great breakfast or lunch tomorrow.  She brought it around 6pm, so that prompted me to return to the basement and apply the yellow paint.  Doors complete.

I finished early enough to enjoy a bacon cheeseburger for dinner and my first slice of peach pie.  It was worth the wait.  The crust was made from scratch and it was flavorful, flaky, and tender to the chew.  Honestly this is one of the best peach pies I’ve ever had.  Not overly sweetened, which made the scoop of vanilla ice cream I had not feel like a put a teaspoon of sugar in my mouth.  The peaches were firm, not mushy like so many that I’ve had.  She definitely did not use can peaches.  Her blend of spices were point on.  I most certainly tasted cinnamon, perhaps a hint of ginger and lemon peel too.  I’ll definitely get another as a reward for the finished project, this time cherry.