With our shed kit pieces laid out and ready to go, we tackled the shed assembly. (Read about the shed kit here.)
Editor’s note: This is a lengthy post, with lots of pictures, so grab your popcorn and wine and settle in for an awesome story!
Shed foundation
Our foundation is 3 giant 11-foot beams (measuring 6″ x 6″) placed on gravel/rock beds. We checked the level, scooped some gravel, checked the level, added more rocks, and finally checked the level until we were pretty happy with it.
Shed instructions
I’d like to take a minute to talk about the instructions that came with the shed kit. I know they were designed to assure that construction is easy and simple. Just a dozen steps, and all the instructions fit on 1 page. Great, right?
Nope.
A single page is pretty much useless when it glazes over most of the key details. Also, pictures of each of the steps really would have helped, since we had never put one of these together before and couldn’t determine how we were doing.
So, we just decided to wing it as best we could, and use common sense to make sure it worked out in the end.
Really, the thing just needed to stick together and not leak. #goals
Shed assembly
Trusses
As per the cryptic instructions, the first step involved securing the trusses to the foundation. This involved math (my personal favourite), marking, and bracing to ensure that once they went vertical, they stayed that way.
Look at those trusses, perfectly lined up! That’s pretty, that is.
Floor boards
The tongue-and-groove floor boards were the next step. The shed kit included 4 boards, but we only used 2.5 to cover the entire area. We’re not quite sure why we had 4, nor did the instructions give any insight. So, free(ish) wood for more projects! #winwin
Side panels
The side panels were next on the list. (You can see one of the panels being measured in the picture above. That finished floor made a handy work surface.)
Each side panel measured 4 feet wide by 8 feet high. Our shed is not quite 7 feet to the bottoms of the roof trusses, so we cut 1 foot off each of the panels all the way around the shed. This left us with some extra wiggle room on the bottom, slightly covering the 6″x6″ foundation beams.
Note: The side panels were also tongue-and-groove (to an extent), and we didn’t account for that properly when finishing the two main sides. As a result, some of the panels don’t fit as snugly as they should, so we’re going to run a little caulking down those seams for good measure.
Back panels
The back panels needed some more cutting than the side panels, since they had to be angled up to the roof pitch. We also added 3 studs (heh heh) to the inside of the back wall, which was 2 more than the instructions called for. On a wall spanning 8 feet, they only wanted one stud in the middle. We had a couple extra 2″x4″ boards, so we centered them on the remaining sections. The back wall panels were much more secure as a result.
Roof
We moved on to the roof next, mostly because storm clouds were rolling in. The roof panels, which are thinner than the floor panels and not tongue-and-groove, were measured, cut, and nailed into the roof trusses. We then had just enough time to secure a couple of tarps to the roof panels before the second downpour of the day happened (as visible in the picture above). Luckily, the rain was not sideways, so the inside barely got wet at all (certainly not enough to damage it).
Front panels and doors
After the rain cleared, it was on to the front panels and doors. This was an intricate process (I imagine, since I was at work the day this took place), which involved creating a door frame out of studs, and then cutting the doors themselves out of the panels. My gentleman friend secured a 2″x6″ board as the door header, which added a lot more support (we have terribly strong winds, so the more support, the better). The door frame and the door supports were built with 1″x3″ boards. The hinges were attached to these boards to allow the doors to open and close (a necessity, really).
See anything strange in that picture? Like, the triangle part of the hinges doesn’t quite fit on the 1″x3″? Yeah, seemed strange to us, too. So here’s how we fixed that:
We added some delightful little diagonal pieces to the frame that serve 2 purposes:
- They give the triangle part of the hinge something to grab onto.
- They look real pretty.
Handles and the latch were added, and the front was done!
Soffit, fascia, and trim
Instead of having giant holes under the roof edge like this:
We chose to fill in this area with the remaining 1-foot pieces we removed from the side panels, which we trimmed to size. Behold, the lovely soffit:
The fascia board was added around the outside edge of the roof frame, and the trim pieces were added to all four corners to round out the look.
Roof
Last, but not least, the all-important roof. The roof boards were already secured, but we had to remove the tarp (our temporary rain protector). We rolled out and trimmed tar paper before securing it to the roof boards.
A metal starter strip was also added to each side, to give the water an edge to drip from.
The first two rows of shingles on both sides were done by my gentleman friend, since my roofing experience is minimal. After that, we each took a side and worked our way up to the top.
I don’t have any pictures of the actual shingling process for a couple reasons:
- We were either sitting on the roof or running up and down the ladder for most of the process, and it wasn’t wise to have a camera up there with us.
- There were storm clouds a brewin’ overhead, so we were up against a timeline.
You’ll get the full shingle view on the finished shed picture, I promise.
The final row of shingles on the cap of the roof required a different process. The two ridge vents were placed on top of the gap we left with the roof boards. I trimmed pieces of shingles while my gentleman friend secured them to the gap, right over top of the ridge vents. This will allow air flow into the shed, without cracking a (non-existent) window.
The final result
And finally, here is the finished shed, in all her glory:
She’s quite pretty, right? And really, isn’t that the most important feature of a shed?
So, when I say she’s “finished”, I mean the shed is built and we’re ready to move stuff in. There are still some little things that we need to do before the winter, like caulking, adding skirting around the bottom, and painting the trim. But as far as functionality goes, the shed assembly is complete.
Shed assembly thoughts
Now that I have gone through the shed assembly process using a shed kit, I think I would recommend it, with several cautions.
- Unless you buy a top-of-the-line shed kit, you aren’t going to get high-quality materials. Several of the 1″x3″ boards in our kit were poorly cut, half missing, or full of holes. We got the lowest grade lumber that could possibly still be called lumber, so we swapped in multiple boards from our own supply.
- As previously mentioned, the instructions were very badly written and open to interpretation. If possible, talk to someone who built a similar shed and ask their advice. You’re likely to get a much more honest opinion.
- Be prepared to add more items to the build list than the kit contains. For example, we added the ridge vents, tar paper, a lock, the 6″x6″ foundation boards, and our own screws and boards (for better quality). Despite the “all-in-one” marketing ploy, you will have to buy extras, so budget accordingly.
However, having never built this kind of shed before, I do believe the kit really helped. Even with the extras, the cost was lower than buying all the parts separately. Plus, I managed to snag us free delivery because of mismatched in-store prices! #goodeye
Planning the storage
Our next step is to figure out what goes in the shed, and how we’re going to organize it all. I’ll save that for the final post in the Shed Series, so keep checking the site for that update!
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