Greenhouses and Gardening

If you have a lot of important “stuff” piling up in the corner of your garage, wouldn’t it be great to have a better place to store it? The solution - a wooden shed. And, the good news is it only takes two days to get it done (that’s assuming you have the materials purchased already from the local supply store.) Here is a quick overview:

Day 1 - Foundation and Framing

The first thing you’ll need to do is prepare the site. It doesn’t have to be level, in fact its better if the ground is slightly pitched down towards the back of the shed for water runoff. Remove any large rocks and/or debris. Because this is a one weekend project, you’ll have to build the shed with a wood floor instead of a concrete one. If you really want to have a concrete foundation, this will stretch the project into another week to allow for drying. But building a wood (or skid) floor is not only faster, its easier, less expensive and even somewhat portable. For this shed, use cinder (or patio) blocks to set the floor on. Make sure the blocks 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.

Using the same process for the frame of the floor, start building the walls. Now is a good time to frame in any windows you want to include. For siding, use T1-11 plywood. It is cut with vertical grooves which gives it the appearance of tongue and groove siding, but has a huge time advantage by coming in sheets instead of individual boards. On top of one of the wall frames, place a piece of T1-11 with the outside facing up. Using the method to square the floor, you now make the wall frame square. Nail the siding to the frame starting on one side and working your way to the other. To make the siding even with the outside of the frame, use a router. Once all the walls are put together, attach them to the floor and use temporary braces of 2×4s to hold up the wall until they have been firmly screwed together. Now make sure the walls are plumb (vertically) by using a level. Now you can rest for the night and start fresh in the morning.

Day 2 - Roof, Door 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 tar paper. 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.

A prefabricated door should be used on your shed to save on time. Attach it to the shed with hinges. And now finish the door and window with trim.

A few details have been omitted from this short article as it is simply intended to show you how possible and simple it is to build a wooden shed in only one weekend.

Tags: green house, gardening