Garden Shed #33 - Final Post on the Project & Lessons Learned

Looking back through my posts on the garden shed, I didn't see any picture sets showing the entire final product. I took some shots around the perimeter...





Reusing the old shed

This was a definite plus. We reused the cedar siding, framing lumber, foundation beams, hardware and pier blocks. Here in Oregon, we could have recycled all this material - but it was much better and cheaper to use it again.

We did not reuse
- 1x4 flooring - tried but it was too damaged (100's of nails!)
- Cedar shingle roofing - too much moss and mold
- Windows - they were tiny and of poor quality
- Plastic and tar paper - too old and damaged

We also used up a bunch of old paint stored in the shed for primer, which worked well.

When I was grinding the nail heads to get the pier blocks free, I got a piece of metal lodged in my eye - and I need to get an incision to get it out (ouch). I had on safety glasses, but it made it's way up underneath. I'll wear a face shield in the future.

Shed sizing

The shed size is key to using materials well. The 12 x 16 footprints gave the following advantages:
- Used full sheets of plywood for the floor
- Had very little waste in framing the walls. - The 7' height gave us a bunch of 1' pieces, which we used for shelf support blocks.
- The 12' width allowed for 8' rafters on a 4/12 pitch, which was by far the most economical

Sliding door

It was more expensive than a hinged double door - about $100 extra - but I think it was well worth it. It is much easier to use, and stays right were you put it.

Summary

I think the shed build was a good intermediate project, that most DIY people could handle with the right tools and time.

Garden Shed #32 - Finished the Windows and the Shed

I finished replacing all the glass in the windows with plexiglas, which worked much better. Each window (these are 2' x 3') cost about $10 for the plastic.


Here are a couple of pictures of the windows installed. I am very happy with "cottage" look they provide.



With these installed, I am officially calling the garden shed project finished. There are a lot of other things to be done around the shed, but I am waiting until spring to start working again. I will spend the next couple of months building furnitire and working on small projects.

Garden Shed #31 - Finished the Stairs

We had another nice fall Saturday in Portland (cloudy & foggy but no rain), and I was able to get the stairs done on the garden shed. While building these was straightforward, making sure they won't be damaged by water over the years requires attention to detail.

I added 2x4's as strong-backs to the stringers, as suggested in a recent Fine Homebuilding article. These are glued and screwed in place.


Even though the stringers are pressure treated, I didn't want to set them directly on the footing blocks. The cinder block will wick moisture up to the wood - and over time it will take its toll in our wet climate. To help mitigate the this, I am putting asphalt shingle between the wood and concrete. This minimizes the contact area, and helps stop the water from wicking. I used poly glue on both side of the shingle to keep it in place.


I also put flashing on the top surfaces of the stringers, which have exposed end-grain. Adding these details costs almost nothing, but it takes extra time and planning.


Here is a picture of the finished product...

Once Spring rolls around, I will put the retaining walls in for the raised beds.

Garden Shed #30 - Window Glass Breaking

The glass kept breaking in the window frames I built for the shed. I had a number of the panes split or crack overnight after I had the windows assembled and caulked. This picture shows one of the cracks (poor photo)...


I think the picture frame glass is too thin. While it only costs $1 per pane, it does not look like an economical option. I think that over the next few months more will break, causing a lot of maintenance.

This glass looks to be about 1/16" thick. I checked at Home Depot, and the replacement panes look to be about double that at 1/8". For now, my plan is pull all the glass out and replace it with Plexiglas. It will cost a bit more, but will be robust over time.

If I had this to do over again, I would have just done one window and installed it to make sure the glass would work. In the end, I lost about $30 on this experiment - not great, but my only mistake on the shed project.

Garden Shed #29 - Installing Window Glass

My DW completed painting the shed windows frames, so now it's up to me to put the glass panes in. The picture below shows all the needed materials.


As I stated in a previous post, the panes of glass come from dollar store 8.5 x 11 picture frames. These are mounted in place with neoprene-backed washers and #8 x 3/4" screws. 


Here is a detailed shot of the mounting hardware...


Tip: I start the screws with an awl pushed in about 1/8".


I used my grinder to make the awl out of a screwdriver with a broken tip. This thing not only comes in handy for starting screws, but also marking for cuts snd prying up staples.

Garden Shed #28 - Stair Construction

I am working on the last 5% of the shed - and completing the final details of any project seem to take an extra large amount of effort...

Right now I'm building the stairs up to the smaller door while my DW finishes painting the windows. The weather is really helping out right now - only intermittent rain, with the weekends being sunny and in the high 60's.

At my DW's request I put a small landing outside the door, rather than just have the steps run right up to it. I have to admit that this was a good design decision, and probably less of a trip hazard when coming out the door.



I set two posts about 2' into the ground and built a little 3'x3' deck out of 2x4's. Here is my method for doing this:

• Dig the holes
• Build and attach the little deck to the shed - hold up the free end with a board and clamp.
• Set the posts in the holes and make sure you can get level and plumb.
• Attach the posts to the deck.
• Put a small amount of gravel in the holes to hold the post positions, but allow a bit of adjustment
• Tap the posts into fine position with a hammer.
• Fill the holes 1/2 full with gravel and tamp it solid.
• Fill the rest of the holes with dry concrete, add water and mix in the hole.

Cutting the stair supports (stringers) was easier than I thought it would be. In a timely fashion, Fine Homebuilding has an article in the current issue on the best practices for building deck stairs. I used a speed square to lay the steps out, giving them 8" rise and 12" run. Once I made one stringer, I used it as the template for the other side.


To align the stairs, I put a 16d at the top of each stringer, located at the center of the post. This makes a pivot point for adjusting the height at the bottom. I also then nailed the temporary cross piece, so I could lift the stairs up to set the blocks, then set them down to check level and square.

I could have made the stringers one step longer, then buried the ends into the dirt, with a small footing underneath. I think at some point this would rot, so I made the bottom step out of cinder block, filled with concrete. I will put a small piece of asphalt shingle under these to keep the wood off of the wet concrete surface. Little details like this only take a few minutes, but help prevent repairs in the long term.


The steps will be attached to the rebar in the blocks. My plan is to put one of the retaining walls across the front of these blocks, so the steps are integrated into the beds.

I used two 1/4" lag bolts at each corner of the small deck. They are 6" long and go in at an angle through the metal corner braces as shown. I believe this method provides way more strength than is actually required.


I need to travel on Saturday afternoon, and I am hoping to get the decking on before I take off.

Garden Shed #27 - Rain Chains and a Workbench

Hard to believe that I can have 27 posts on building a garden shed... That being said, I am going into a lot of detail to provide useful information to others. My kids think I am obsessed - and that's probably true, until I am on to the next project.

I put the rain-chains in the gutters. The first time I saw a rain-chain was about 10 years ago in Tokyo. It was a string of little cups that made sound - the shed has just a simple chain to avoid down spouts.

I cut a 2" hole in the gutter with a hole saw before mounting. I also put a gutter support directly above the hole to support the chain.


I opened up the top link of the chain and hung it from the gutter screw. I didn't want to hang it directly from the vinyl gutter, assuming it would eventually fail. I put a 2" ABS floor drain (cut to allow the chain to pass) to direct the water on to the chain.


Here is how it looks coming out of the gutter.


You obviously need a reasonable overhang (the shed has 18") to use these effectively.


What to do with the run-off? Water plants...

We are going to put terraced planting beds down the hill from the shed as shown below. The black lines are the retaining walls, and the red areas will be gravel walking paths. I will install a simple drain-field system - 4" perforated pipe behind each of the walls and gravel "spill ways" to spread the water out to all the beds.

I have a few other photos of things we have done since the last post:

My DW painted the panel areas of the sliding door the green base color of the shed. When the door was all brown, it was too much and became the focal point.


I installed the workbench for my DW. Its a pretty simple design made of 2x4's and plywood.


The lower shelf only extends 2/3 of the way across, leaving a taller, open area on the left. We will put a couple of rubber garbage cans here to store potting soils. Tomorrow, I hope to get the racks and pegs up to start putting all the garden tools away.

Garden Shed #26 - Building the Window Frames

I finished building the shed window frames as shown below. They are ready for my DW to paint when she gets the chance. As I have noted in previous posts, these are 2'x3' and will end up costing about $10 each, including glass and hardware.


All four of these will be tip-in windows - the tops will tip inwards about 8 inches to allow ventilation in the summer time. The bottoms will be hinged.

Building the window frames

The general construction of these frames is a lap design (similar to the doors). This is really simple and makes for a very strong window. This technique also makes use of some of the short cut-off ends from the trim and doors.

The following diagram should help you understand how the process works...


First, I built the "blue" parts. These are assembled with 2" brads through the cross-pieces (using an air nailer) and Titebond waterproof wood glue. The cross-pieces are cut extra long as shown. I align one side (in this case the right side), and let the other side extend over. You can cut them to exact length if you want, but I prefer to trim everything off at one time.


Then I build the "orange" parts. These are really simple - glue and 1.25" brads. The outside pieces have the support rib aligned to the edges, and for the center piece, I align it up the middle (shown). The support ribs will overlap the "blue" end pieces and make assembly easy.


I assemble the frames by gluing and nailing the "orange" center pieces to the ends. Here is a picture of the front side. Notice that the cross pieces and support ribs are long, except on the bottom, where I took the time to align everything.


Here is a picture of the back side. Where the cross-pieces and ribs overlap, I use a 1.25" deck screw instead of nails. I pre-drill the holes to avoid the wood splitting. One screw at each overlap should give plenty of strength to the frame (screws are not shown in the picture).


Once assembled, I use the table saw to clean up the edges.


Now that the frames are assembled, we will paint them, then attach the glass using a few support clips and silicone caulk. I will attach hinges to the bottom and a small bolt-latch at the top.


I'll take pictures of the installation, showing how they tip-out.

Garden Shed #25 - Gutters, Trim, Doors & Windows

I decided to put vinyl gutters on the shed. The cost difference between these and galvanized metal is negligible, and these were already painted a dark brown color. Also, more than 1/2 of the metal gutters at Home Depot were dented in some way, which was a bad omen.

I put the first side on in pieces and fully assembled the second side before attaching it. The second side was much easier, with my DW helping hold it while I drove in the screws.

Here is a picture of the pergola end of the shed with the trim complete. We are really happy with the colors and looking forward to doing these on the house in the near future.


A boy and his dog on a sunny fall day... It sure is nice to be outside well into October.


I also made the smaller door, using the same construction technique I did on the sliding one. It's basically a 1/4" Luann core, with 1x4's glued, stapled and screwed in place. This makes a lightweight, straight and rigid door - and only costs about $25 before hardware.


Finally, I cut all the pieces for the window frames:



These will get assembled into the frame pattern shown below. Its nice to use up most of the small pieces from the rest of the shed (keeping it green).

Garden Shed #24 - Mounting the Sliding Door

Well, global markets may be in chaos, but at least I got the sliding door mounted on the shed... Seriously, with all the crazy things going on in the world, it is nice to just accomplish something simple. Here is a picture of the door in place:

The first coat of paint on it is all brown. The next coat will be the darker green color in the panel areas and the trim will remain as is. I wanted to mount it this way to see if we would like it - but its too much of the dark color. Either way, I am happy with the way it has turned out so far.

Mounting the door in the box-rail track was simple, it just required a second set of hands due to the size and weight of the door. Now I need to fabricate and attached the stop-blocks at each end and the latch hardware.

Garden Shed #23 - Ultimate Shed Site

I believe I found the center of the shed universe: readersheds.co.uk. It's a UK site that covers just about anything you can image regarding sheds, including those that live, vacation and work in them.



If you need inspiration or ideas, I think you can get all the images you would ever need here. You join, post your own shed project and become a "sheddie".

Garden Shed #22 - Constructing the Sliding Door

I was able build the sliding shed door today. The weather in Oregon is outstanding right now, and working outside was great. We decided to go with a traditional barn door "X" pattern, as shown...


Most of what I have done on this shed is fairly simple construction. The door was a bit more technical, so I decided to post a "how to" on my photo blog with a number of pictures of the process. How to build this sliding door. If you have some level of experience with woodworking / construction, this should give you the needed additional info to build something like it.

I really like the transom / top row of windows that they are putting into garage doors these days, so I added them here. The back sides are built to hold standard size picture glass.

Costs:
- 1/4" Luann plywood (Home Depot) - 2 pieces at $11 each - $22
- 10' long economy 1x4's (Home Depot) - 11 pieces at $2.80 - $31
- 8.5 x 11 glass (Dollar Tree Picture Frame) - 6 pieces at $1 each - $6
- Total: $60.

The rail and roller assembly cost about $100 for everything. So with paint and latch hardware, I will be in to this for just about $200.

Here is the opening and rail for the door:

Garden Shed #21 - Pergola

I built the pergola and mounted it over the window yesterday. I am really happy with the scale and form - it definitely adds to the "cottage" look. Here are a couple of pictures of it in place...



The window is 4' wide and the pergola is 8'.

I fabricated the pergola from five 8' long pressure-treated 2x6's - total cost of about $40. After cutting, I painted each piece before assembly. In the past I have tried to paint these once assembled, which is not a easy. The rest of the shed trim will be painted this same dark brown. Once we reside the house (hoping early next year), I will mount similar structures over the windows on the west-end of the house to help filter the evening sun.

I also mounted the box-rail for the sliding door on the other gable-end. Once I build and mount the door, I will decide if I want some sort of pergola or structure over it.