Look at what a tornado did to the lighthouse shed!

This young woman is looking up at the same angle I was as a tornado passed directly over my home and lighthouse shed in the summer of 2006. Every few seconds, there were sickening cracking noises and alarming thuds as trees up to 34 inches in diameter snapped in half while others were uprooted. This tornado provided the perfect opportunity to test the lighthouse shed's durability.

So what happened to it? Nothing. I knew that I built it to be strong, but I frankly could not believe that it survived such fierce winds—winds strong enough to bend trees almost 3 feet in diameter like wet noodles. The following pictures show what the tornado did to some of my trees.

Incidentally, one of the trees struck the roof of another shed. That tree broke in half where it hit the shed's roof, but the roof remained intact. What do you think would happen to one of those flimsy sheds sold by Home Depot or Lowes? They'd be flattened like a pancake. So here's a lesson for the cheapskates who wrote to me thinking they could buy the lighthouse shed for about what a fragile plain-vanilla shed costs at the big-box stores: If you want quality, exceptional durability, and a shed that is literally a work of art with every piece painstakingly handcrafted by a perfectionist (that would be me!), you must pay for it. Take your lowball offers, add a zero, and then contact me. Or try to content yourself with a big-box shed that is nothing more than an eyesore destined to fall apart in a few years. American backyards are littered with millions of junky sheds because people won't pay for quality. Ironically, Americans think nothing of spending $100,000 just to remodel a kitchen, yet pinch pennies like a miser when it comes to outbuildings which could beautify their yards. Go figure.

I think the American perception of quality is distorted by what I call the Wal-Mart effect. You know—you buy something that seems to be a bargain, but you are myopically focused on price, not quality. I will be the first to admit that I, too, was once this stupid. Then it hit me: many of the seemingly great bargains were anything but. For example, one fall in which I did very little baking I had three mixers fail that I purchased from Wal-Mart. When I was young, I bought a relatively inexpensive made-in-America mixer for my Mom as a Christmas present. That mixer was still going strong over three decades later—and my Mom baked more than Martha Stewart and Better Crocker combined! (Several thousand cookies later, I am fortunate that I discovered an easy way to lose weight.) Thus, you and I could save money by purchasing better-quality items that might cost more but last a long time. Furthermore, our landfills wouldn't be filled with so much junk that dies prematurely. Recycling is good, but what's even better is obviating the need for recycling, or delaying it for many years. End of sermon.

This shattered tree is much smaller than another one (not pictured) with similar splintering, but the latter one was almost 3 feet in diameter.

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