The Tool Shed

OnlyOneDR

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2006
Location
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So I have needed a shed to oust all the garden tools, mowers, tiller, etc from the garage for a long time. Probably a decade. I started looking at pre-built sheds last year and they are simply too expensive for what you get, the quality of construction and materials just is not great. Deceivingly, a lot of the sheds at the big-box places do not come with a floor for the price they show so you have to plan in a wood frame floor or concrete. I looked at buying a used shed off Craisglist and everyone wants a lot of money for rotted out junk and once you price in getting it moved it turns into a not-great deal. But I kept searching and last November I turned up an add for a free 10x16 shed down in Emerald Isle. The pictures made the shed look great (wish I saved them off the ad) and the "seller" sounded motivated. The hitch was that it needed to be dismantled to get it off the property as it sounded like there was little access to where it was sitting.

I pondered it for a couple days then checked with the wife to see if she was good with it. With the go-ahead I contacted the seller on Friday the week before Thanksgiving and he called me back later that day to let me know that someone was already coming to look at it. I left my number in case it fell through. The next morning around 10AM he calls to tell me the person flaked out so we rushed to pack the truck, I piled a bunch of tools in the bed and hooked up the trailer and headed that way. My in-laws live about 25 minutes away so my wife stayed there while I went to look at the thing.

Turned out the guy was having a swimming pool put in the back yard of a vacation rental house he had and needed the shed gone by the following week. I told him it would be gone by the end of the weekend. The next morning my father-in-law gave me a hand and we went to the place and started taking it apart. I stripped the roof to find a few areas where the OSB was damaged from leaks. No big deal.
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There was some T1-11 siding tattered all along the bottom and some minor rot at the very front where erosion had pushed a bunch of soil up against the base but overall it was very dry and clean. We stripped the T1-11 with a sawzall and generally used a couple demolition type blades to sever the nails. Once the frame was exposed we sliced the roof in half, dropped it over the sides, then sliced those into halves, effectively cutting the roof into four pieces. The walls came apart as units, then the floor was sectioned into four pieces following seam lines. It was stacked on my trailer to haul home; we spent about 6-1/2 hours taking it apart.

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It sat on the trailer covered with tarps until early March while I wrapped up the house addition I posted in another thread. I did select the site off the side of the backyard and clear some small trees and brush.

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With the addition basically done I turned to this project. I dropped about 3 yards of #57 washed stone over the area and setup solid concrete blocks where I was going to lay a new sub-frame to support the old shed floor.

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Since I literally sawed all the cross-members I needed to rebuild support under where those seams were going to be. Good thing was the shedactually had two 16' 4x4s under it that were on blocks on the original site and were dry and solid so I only had a purchase a couple more. For the ends I used some doubled-up 2x4x10s I had left over from another project; I lag bolted all the ends together. The pictures are a little deceiving, there is about 8" drop on one corner, all the blocks were leveled with a laser.

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Frame put together.

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I did use my new framing connnector nailer to add metal supports to prevent board twisting at the ends. This is an amazing tool (not sold at the big box stores) and over the course of construction it nailed over 1000 nails into the shed.

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The county said I also needed to have tie downs in the corners so 30" mobile-home tie-downs and straps were installed.

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I also purchased 11/32 rated sheathing and painted it with some cheap ("oops" at the paint department) exterior paint to seal the bottom from critters. That was nailed over the sub-frame before the shed was re-assembled (no pictures).

On a Saturday in early March a handful of friends (including Bryan and Wayne) came over and helped me with the barn-raising. I tried to stage everything and have donuts at the ready...

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Folks helped with nailing down the sub-frame sheathing, stuffing the floor with R-13, re-aligning the floor sections upside-down and mending them with plates, flipping everything over and seaming it together. Then the wall sections were squared and re-nailed to the floor frame. By lunch it looked like this.

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Bryan stuck around until after dark; I think because he was really keen on getting the roof frame put together. This took a bit of extra time as I planned to change the roof line from a gable to a high gambrel to gain loft space over half of the floor. We had to temporarily nail a new ridge beam after ridge connectors were installed and do some figuring and cleaning up of the original roof panels to make it work. We nailed in hurricane ties on both wall plates to make placement easy and then used mending plates at the joints of the rafters to tie it all together. We stripped off the damaged OSB sheating before putting the pieces up.

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This is where it ended up by the end of the day (picture taken the following morning).

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Continued next post.
 
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Then I needed to start formally closing this in. I started adding structural bracing to the front and rear walls, adding collar ties, and getting sheathing on the roof.

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Since the new eave was so much lower due to the increased angle of the roof line I was able to slice off the tattered edges of the T1-11 siding and re-nail to the walls on the sides. The front and back were getting new T1-11 on the bottoms and I would re-use as much as I could of the original end wall siding. I still needed five new sheets of T1-11.

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To ensure that the roof line was as square as possible I used some straps and rigged the framework to a tree before nailing everything together. I had to do this for both sides.

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With the new 15/32 roof decking secured and the loft beams in it was starting to look like something.

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Next step was to re-work the door opening on the front. The original shed hd a relatively small 4' wide, not quite 6' tall door opening. I want to drive the mower with the bagging attachment into it as well as make it possible to get larger things into the shed if I need to. So I re-framed for a nearly 6' wide, 80" tall opening.
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Re-used upper siding went on the back after flashing the lower course and 30# roofing felt was tacked on the roof deck as rain was coming in towards the end of that week.

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The the front was closed in and I re-used as much trim as I could as well as using new wood to close in the eaves.

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Drip edge was installed all the way around and I nailed 25 year 3-tab to the roof.

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Since this was a non-standard opening it required custom doors. I bought a pair of neat continuous gear hinges, a two-point latch for the left door (inside handle only), a three-point latch with outside handle for the right hand door and an actual metal threshold. I still need to finish door stops on the left and right with jamb seals but the thing will be fairly secure and closed up well once this is complete.

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Then I needed a ramp so I can drive the lawn mower up into the shed. I threw together a quick one with some extra 5/4 I had laying around from an old project. I will widen it later as it is wide enough for the mower but I am over purchasing overpriced lumber for now.

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Painted the inside to reflect more light and make for easier sweeping.

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Painted the outside. Bought two random gallons of "oops" painted from Home Depot for $9 each and mixed them together for this random pot luck color.

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I finally drew up "plans" (really, I drew up what I built) and submitted those to the county late last week. Still waiting on approvals for the permit (yes I built it without one). Damn Wake County wants ridiculously detailed scale plans (all side views with framing, foundation, floor, roof, etc) and it designed to 2018 International Residential Code (even though it's a shed folks). At least they already approved my site plan so it is where it is "supposed" to be.
 
I ran an extension cord out there, drilled a small hole in the back corner and ran in a cord to connect a dehumidifier, then drilled another hole for a drain hose. Checked it yesterday and it was definitely drier in there; I found a nice higher-end dehumidifier for cheap on craigslist and it has digital controls so I can maintain the interior at about 60% humidity to keep things from rusting or getting moldy. I noticed it also did not have a musty smell when I went in there so it must be working! Moved the bikes and a few storage bins from the attic; will try to get more out there this weekend.
 
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