Thinking about adding a shed to your property? Should you build a shed from scratch? Or buy a DIY kit? Or have a finished shed delivered to your home?
The answer will depend on many factors. And this series will help you decide if building a shed from scratch is the right fit for you.
We decided to build a shed. Read about our experience and learn from our mistakes.
LEAN-TO SHED BUILD - INTRO AND PLANNING (SHED SERIES: PART 1)
My husband is an amazing handyman. There's not much he can't build or fix.He keeps all our cars running (And with my husband and I, three adult, but not quite flown the coop kids, and a teenager that's a lot of cars).
He finished our basement, keeps up with house repairs and did most of the remodel of his parents home.
I'm going to let him take over for this series about our shed build.
Below are all 7 articles included in this series. Links will be added as the posts go live.
Introduction & Planning (This post)
Building the Floor
Building the Walls
Roof & Overhang
Doors & Finishing
Shelving
Cost Analysis
PLANNING THE SHED
Hello, this is Mr. Adventures of a DIY Mom,
This is a story about a shed. The story will have the whys, the mistakes, and the additions along the way that might help or hinder your decision to tackle a project like this. At the DIY mom homestead, we needed extra storage around our home to store various items including tools and equipment for The Adventures of a DIY Mom crafts. In looking at the plastic sheds at various big box stores, wood sheds at the big lumber stores and the metal sheds online, they were either really expensive for the size we needed or were not built to the standards we would like to last a long time. Preliminary drawings and price break downs were done and with the goal of making a 8’x14’ wood frame shed. With current material costs it was estimated that the shed would be around $2500.
To put that into perspective, DIY shed kits with the same foot print that would also need roofing, paint and other materials to complete were over $3200. Sheds that would be completely finished and delivered at our home would be upwards of $10,000. These sheds also had lower ceilings and many had A-frame roofs. Because of where our shed was to be built we wanted a lean-to style shed. I am also 6’3” tall and I really hate hitting my head on things so the doors had to be over 6’ tall and this made it so the walls had to be taller to accommodate this. This blog is about DIY so we of course decided to tackle the project ourselves. The final cost of the shed we built was well over our estimated cost of $2500. But we will discuss why as we go thru the shed build. This is not meant to be a how-to on shed building (there are thousands of shed videos online). This is meant to be about what issues, upgrades, ideas, or things to think about as you decide if you want to make your own shed, buy a DIY kit, or just have a shed delivered to your home.
As stated above, our first estimate for our shed was going to be around $2500. This was for a basic lean-to shed with 2x4 walls, 2x4 pressure treated floor, 2x6 ceiling rafters, and plywood siding. We live in an area that gets snow in the winter and needed the ceiling to support this snow load when it happens. After some planning and researching what the end goal for the shed was going to be, we began the shed.
In the last couple years our kids have gotten older and all needed cars. Our driveway was not big enough to accommodate them. A few years ago, we made our driveway much bigger.
Due to the length of the driveway, it allowed us room to fit the shed against our home and still maintain driveway space for two cars. So the location of our shed was chosen. This spot allowed us to have a concrete base for the shed, but the driveway has a slope that needed to be taken into account. Next up: Building the Shed Floor
MORE DIY PROJECTS
- How to Build a Shelf (Laundry Room Makeover)
- How to Build a Bookshelf (Popular!)
- How to Build a Toy Box
0 comments