Now that we have fiberglass steps it seemed like a good idea to attach a railing. Jett has vertigo occasionally (where the “occasion” is “every day”) and her older sister Sybil, who is none too steady on her pins, is coming for a visit. So a railing seemed like a REALLY good idea.

I could have cheaped out and cobbled together something workable out of 2x4s. But I decided I should make it as attractive as possible, so I opted for a white PVC plastic railing. The railing is designed to work with sheaths that slip over 4x4s, so the hard work was cutting the 4x4s and securely attaching them to the steps. Putting up the railing was a piece of cake after getting the posts installed.

Of course we had to paint the steps, too. No sense in putting a nice PVC handrail on a crappy-looking set of steps. So I painted them beige, to match the RV, more or less.

I also completed the front-side frame for the vinyl skirt that we will be putting around the shed. This frame, on the front side, also doubles as the foundation for the steps that I will be building. This was a lot of work, but I have already had compliments from two men in the trades – a general contractor and an electrician – who admired the frame and said that I “did it right.” I take some pride in that.

The day after we acquired our fiberglass steps, our shed was delivered. Getting it onto the site was a bit of an adventure which started with me having second thoughts about the precise location. The proposed location had been approved via a drawing on the site plan, but the problem was that the site plan contained no reference marks. A clear rule, though, was that the 5-foot setback had to be observed at all times. While the setback on the south side was pretty clear – the gap between my pavers and my southern neighbor was precisely 10 feet – the northern setback was not clear at all. The gap between my neighbor’s pavers and the outer edge of my pavers was only about 9 feet. I believe that the developer, when he installed my paver bump-out, cheated a bit on the setback. I had already compensated a bit, but it appeared that the back side of the shed would still be just 9′ 8″ from the neighbor.

The site next to ours is unowned, but I had this vision of a new owner checking his boundaries and finding my shed in violation of the setback rules. I decided to move the shed in 4″. A further complication was that once the shed was moved 4 inches to the south, the corner tie-down point was too close to the curved edge of the paver bump-out. So I also shifted the location 6″ west. Having decided on these alterations to the original plan, I was hastily marking new corner targets while the shed was being unloaded from the trailer.

The next adventure was getting the shed dropped without crushing the water and sewer lines. It was a close shave, but the forklift driver – a woman – maneuvered with the skill of a surgeon.

I was fascinated by the installation of the hurricane tie-downs. These were 6 metal rods, with auger tips, that were drilled into the soil (after removing some pavers on the south edge) using a super-sized version of an electric drill. It obviously had tremendous torque. After the rods were in place, metal straps were screwed into the rods and attached to the underside of the shed. Supposedly these will keep the shed from flying off to Kansas in the next hurricane.

When I had first selected the site for the shed I had eyeballed the RV awning and was convinced that it would be able to fully deploy without touching the shed. But after shifting the shed 4 inches closer to the RV, I was no longer so confident. After getting the shed tied down, I apprehensively put the awning out. Gingerly, inch by inch. It finished deploying with about 3 inches to spare. And was above the top of the shed doors – a factor that I had not considered and feel damn lucky that it worked out.

Now we are awaiting arrival of the county building inspector, to give final approval before we can start using the shed.

We had fiberglass steps last year at Paradise Pointe, but had to sell them at the end of the season. We wanted to get similar steps for use in Cypress Trail and, with the imminent arrival of the shed, would be able to store them for multi-year use. However, we couldn’t find any suitable used ones and the new ones were pretty pricy – at least $400.

But recently, when looking at available sites in the park, we came across a site with the perfect fiberglass steps. A couple was moving back north and needed to sell them. They weren’t available that day as they still needed them, but we gave them our number and were very pleased when they called us and offered to sell us the steps for just $100. We jumped. We paid our landscaping guys a few bucks to haul them to our site and we are now the proud new owners of fiberglass steps.

Jett, as you can see, is very happy with them.