So you are looking into wooden sheds and are considering building one for yourself. Well, then there are some important considerations to think about. For instance, purpose, location, building materials and whether or not to build it yourself or hire someone to build it for you. Let’s take a look at each of these considerations:

How The Shed Will Be Used

Of course you’ll want to use your wooden shed to its fullest potential. A basic question you will want to ask yourself is if you want it to store your garden equipment? Maybe your pool supplies or woodworking tools? There are so many purposes for wooden sheds than just storage. Sheds are used by some people as a retreat where they can just relax. Imagine your shed decked out with furniture, a refrigerator and even a flat screen TV.

Location

Knowing how you will be using your shed will be a great help in determining where you put it. Some locations will be obvious – like, a pool cabana will go near the pool or a garden shed will be located near or next to the garden. If you plan to run any plumbing or wiring to your shed, you should choose a spot that will be easy to route the wires and pipes. Be careful when digging any trenches as there may be existing plumbing or wiring that you could hit which would be a really bad thing. Also, be aware of how the sun and shade will affect your shed throughout the day. Water drainage is another important consideration.

If you are building a wooden shed (which I recommend), you will probably want it to be pretty visible from your main house. After all, wooden sheds have a certain charm and character that you will want to show off.

Building Materials

Yes, I recommend wooden sheds over other types of sheds, but your options include metal or plastic sheds. Plastic sheds generally cost less than metal but metal is more sturdy even though it can be dented rather easily. They both have positive aspects but you may want to place them farther away from view or near the side of your house since they aren’t quite as attractive as real wooden sheds.

Hire a Pro or Build Yourself

Wooden shed kits make for a great weekend project (they take longer if you wish to pour a concrete foundation) if you are comfortable with your carpentry skills. A recommended route to take is to look for plans online, especially if you have past carpentry experience. Carefully select your plans by researching online. You’ll find there is a wide variety of plans available. You can also purchase a wooden shed kit as another option. They are packed up and shipped right to your driveway. Included in the kit is all the parts you will need plus the instructions.

As you can tell, an important part of owning a shed is the planning that goes into it before you actually start building.

Find all kinds of tips, information and resources for your own storage shed at Timothy Corcoran’s excellent web site devoted to wooden garden sheds.

Day 1 – A Solid Foundation and Framework

Site preparation is the first item on the list. Its OK if the site isn’t perfectly level as a slight downward pitch towards the back of the shed is optimum for water runoff. Make sure you now remove all large rocks and debris from the site where the shed will rest. Since this is only a one weekend project, instead of pouring a concrete floor, you will need to make a wood floor. If you really want or need a concrete foundation, allow a couple extra days for drying. Not only is a wood floor faster to build, it requires less skill, is less expensive and even portable. For this shed, rest the frame of the floor on cinder (or patio) blocks – making sure they are level.

Now, lets get started on the actual building. Once you have the first floor joist cut, use it as a template for the rest ” its way easier and faster. Here’s another tip, for strength, use deck screws instead of nails. A power drill makes screwing boards together very quick work. Once the frame of the floor is finished, make sure its square by measuring two corners diagonally, then the other two. The measurements should be the same. If not, take one of the corners with the longer measurement and adjust it by pushing in towards the opposing corner. Make small adjustments at a time. Nail on the plywood subfloor by staggering the boards (much like bricks). You don’t want four corners of four different pieces of plywood to end up in the middle of your shed.

Building the walls is pretty much the same process as building the skid for the floor. If you want any windows on the shed, frame them accordingly. To cover the sides, use T1-11 plywood. T1-11 has vertical grooves cut into it to give the appearance of tongue and groove siding but since it comes in sheets, the amount of time to put on the siding is cut way down. Take one of the wall frames and place the T1-11 on top (outside facing down). Use the same method to make the walls square that you used for the floor. Now nail the siding to the frame. If possible, buy, borrow or rent a router to use to trim the siding to the studs all the way around the walls. Once you have the walls put together, you can now attach them to the floor. Use temporary braces to hold the walls up until you have them screwed together. Make sure you use a level to plumb the walls (they should be perfectly vertical). This is a good place to stop for the day.

Day 2 – Roof, Door, Windows and Trim

Today, you’ll start off by building the trusses. Assemble all the pieces of the first truss by following the plans but don’t nail it together at this time. If all the pieces are fitting together correctly, use the pieces as templates for the rest of the trusses. You can now go back and screw (or nail) all the trusses together and attach each of the trusses to the top of the shed walls. Now you can cut and attach plywood sheeting for the roof. Next comes the installation of the asphalt shingles which is done exactly as they are on a house. Start by rolling down roofing felt. Place the first row on the bottom and overlap the rows as you work up to the top. Apply a second layer across the top ridge for extra strength. When you apply the shingles, make sure to offset the seams and work your way from the bottom to the top. Now all you have left is the ridge cap which is made by cutting down single shingles. Shingles are usually made with slits on the bottom half to look like three shingles on a single sheet. Overlap these single pieces of shingles to form the ridge cap.

You should use a door on your shed that is prefabricated which will save you a huge amount of time since all you need to do is attach it with hinges. You will want to finish off the door with trim.

There are a few details that have been passed over in this short article but the intent is to show you how possible and simple it is to build a wooden shed in the matter of only a couple of days.

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