From Shed Plan to 200 sq-ft of Storage

pierre — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 16:57:19 +0000

We always wanted a Garden shed to store the lawn mower and the things we stored in the basement and the costly $80 a month self storage unit – that was $960 a year! I started to look online as well as in store for pre-made sheds but I got immediately stunted by the cost $1,500 for an ugly 8′ x 10′ to $5,600 for what I really needed so I looked at building one from a garden shed plan.

I purchased a $250 shed plan - the exact same shed plan you can request for absolutely free below. I encourage you to request it even if you’re not ready to build a garden shed.

First thing to do is to check with your city regarding the codes, in my case the maximum size allowed without a permit is 10′ x 10′ and up to 12′ tall on a concrete slab. The shed plan I purchased was custom modified to fit these requirements.

Building a Garden Shed from Shed Plan

The list of material in the shed plan is well listed and the shopping at Home depot was quick and easy – I got the 2 windows from a distress construction material shop – these are windows, doors and other materials that were ordered but never picked up – I got 2 windows for $40 each – the total cost of the list from the shed plan: $720 only.

Following the instructions, we cut the lumber at dimension – yes that my daughter in the picture she loves woodworking and she is good at it. Building the wall are easy as well as raising them – the plan describes very well all the steps needed for a perfectly squared set of walls.

My main concern was building the roof – here in Minnesota we can get up to 2′ of snow in one day and I had no experience building from a garden shed plan! But with 8″ floor joist and 7 trusses spread every 2′ it didn’t seem very complicated.

Walls were very quickly up and standing, as we built the joist box in an hour or so installing the joists and the attic floor was easier than expected and quite fun to do.

Building the gable shaped trusses from the shed plan

The trusses are composed of 3 pieces of 2×4 nailed together through gussets - because of the gable shape of the roof, angles are a bit crazy but following the shed plan it’s quite easy – I drew lines on my garage floor and cut all the lumber as required. I measured twice and drew once – the gussets are made from plywood and I nailed them to the 2×4 – it took about half a day to make the 5 internal trusses and the 2 external ones. I have to admit that some measurements are a bit funky like 36″ 13/16 or 47″ 9/16 but if we wanted a good looking roof we knew we had to follow the shed plan and make these dimensions.

Finishing the garden shed as per the shed plan

Following the instructions and a little bit of imagination helped a lot - sheathing the roof and the walls are quite easy but that’s something that can’t be done alone, I know I tried and finished with a nice bruise but with two people to hold the 4×8 sheet of OSB and one to nail makes the job so easy.

For the roof I used asphalt shingles – 2 packs were enough and inexpensive – I bought from Home Depot 6 Particle Board Panels 1/4 x 4 ft. x 8 ft. and yellow paint for the outside as well as some 1×2 white composite to trim the new garden shed we built from scratch – we built the door ourselves as I needed custom sizes and I finished their installation during the 3rd weekend of the project.

Bottom line, building a garden shed from a shed plan is quite easy and really inexpensive – mine cost around $800 and the same type pre-made would have hit the $2,500 range without the windows! If I can do it, any one can do it. Don’t forget to request the same shed plan absolutely free above!

An Insight To The Pricing Of Ready-Built Sheds | shed

pierre — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 09:09:31 +0000

This is just a quick insight into how much it really costs to purchase a ready-built shed and why you are so much better off building your own shed.

I was recently on vacation in France and I happened to walk by a whole collection of ready-built sheds. These sheds ranged in size, quality and price and cost anywhere from $1,500 to over $5,000 for a single shed and they were not even that good-looking!

If you enjoy a challenge and have enough spare time, then building your own shed is going to cost you only a fraction of the price and you’re going to end up exactly with the kind of design that you want. How do you do this? Simple, all you need are plans for building a shed. In these plans you will have the exact instructions for which materials to buy and how to put them together to get the finished product. It’s not much harder than putting together a lego car.

Here are some Shed pictures I took:

$2099 + Shipping for the shed in the picture above a 9′ x 6′ Cabana Shed

$1619 for the 10′ x 10′ shed in the picture above!

So besides the fact that you’re probably going to save at least 50% of the price when you build your own shed, it’s also super fun to finish a project like this. You can be proud of making something with your own two hands and it’ll keep you entertained much better than sitting in front of your TV with a beer all weekend.