DIY Mom – Storage Shed

I made some storage for my kids outdoor toys. My kids will have to play outside on their scooters and their bikes. The problem is there’s, nowhere to store all this stuff, because the garage is my shop and I don’t not want them going in there with all the tools in there.

So I came up with this cedar shed and I’m, really happy with how it came out. I made a lot of mistakes as I was building it, but in the end a lot of lessons learned so follow along to see how I did it.

I used my circular saw to cut all the pieces for this build to make my life a little bit easier. I made this guide to help me make my cuts straight and square. All you have to do is take two pieces and attach them out of a right angle to each other, and then, when you cut away at the excess on the bottom, it will always perfectly line up to your cut line, and you never have to measure.

If you’re using a straight edge to guide your circular, saw against, I tried to cut as many pieces as I could at one time by clamping the boards together, marking them all and then cutting away. This made the process go a lot smoother and then, after I had all of my straight cuts, I turned the saw to a twenty-two point, five degree angle to cut all of my angled cuts.

The angled cuts are all going to be for the roof and I wasn’t really sure what angle to cut it at, but this seems to be okay and then I sanded all the pieces a little bit before assembly. I’m. Going to be gluing and screwing, all these pieces together and putting glue on ingredients is not always the best idea.

So I decided to put a layer of glue on before I did the actual glue up. That way, when I actually did the glue up the glue, wouldn’t totally get sucked up into the pores. So I clamped all the pieces at a right angle to each other and then first assembled the base.

I’m using pressure-treated wood for the base because it’s, going to come into contact with the ground the rest of the structure. I’m using four two by twos and cedar for the outside. Now, here’s, my first mistake: I assembled the sides before attaching it to the base, but I should have done was attached.

The two uprights to the base first and then I wouldn’t – have ran into the problem where I needed to create the support to hold that angle, and then I also wouldn’t have ran to a problem where this side piece Was too short for the base? I should have attached those two uprights first and then I should have measured for the piece I was going to connect the two uprights.

Instead, mine was too short. You’ll, see what I mean in a bit and then attach the long stretcher piece connect the two sides making sure to twist it a little bit at the top so that it had the same angle as those two uprights.

Now you see the mistake here: you see that it’s just a little bit too short. It should have been flush with the front of the piece now for mistake. Number two: you see it’s kind of like bowing out at the top yeah.

I didn’t realize that the bottom base was an outside measurement and the top was an inside measurement. So I didn’t realize it at this point, but I realized it after I assembled the whole roof and I unscrewed it and I cut off an inch and a half from each of the ends and then reassembled it.

I do that off-camera dogs host really annoyed, then I cut all of those pieces to size and then just attach them again using glue and screws. The last thing to do for the frame was to attach the roof supports.

I cut these to size and these do not have an angle on the ends of them, because I had twisted those longer stretchers that attach the two sides, the top of those matched the angle of the roof and the two sides are square to each other and It was at this point that I realized that the roof was too wide, but I fixed it and it was all good.

So I know our deck is in really bad shape and I plans to fix it up. But in the meantime, in order to put the shed into place, I had to clean up where I was gonna go. The pressure washer is so satisfying to use.

So I got the frame into place and then I sanded just a little bit more to flush up some of the joints and to ease all the edges. I decided to finish the two by fours with this Thompson’s WaterSeal and a cedar color, because I’m going to be using cedar for the outside, and I’m, pretty happy with the color match after that dried.

I got to working on the floors I needed to make some notches in some of the pieces so that they would fit around the frame and I used my jig saw to do that. I hate using the jigsaw, but really it’s, just like the only tool for the job at sometimes time number one did not fit time.

Number two did not fit either and finally, third time was a charm and fit right into place just had to notch out one more board. This time I made sure to cut it a little bigger so that it fit on the first time and the first time it fit really great everything was going really smoothly now, and then it started to rain for a couple days ahead.

To put this project on hold once the rain stopped, I got to working on putting on the rest of the panels. I started attaching them using nails and that was taking forever. So then I switched over to screws, and that was way easier.

I only attached the top and bottom at this point and then I laid the rest of the boards to figure out the spacing. So I took the space that I have and divided it by how species I needed and then I got her measurement for a spacer to cut that made.

The assembly go so much smoother, but this was a little bit of a mistake because I wanted smaller spacings. I just ran out of material and I did not want to go out and buy more material, so I just ran with it and I was fine with it.

But if you want less spacing on the plans that I had written up, I drew up an extra board, so you could decide you want to do it with the plans, but the extra board – or you can keep it like this with the larger spacing.

If you want, you might have also noticed, I’m racking in the frame before, and I was actually a little bit nervous that this structure would not be sturdy enough, but once I attached on these cedar panels it was really strong and sturdy.

I was very happy with how strong it was. I just continued screwing on the panels till I got to the top and there was an angle, so I screwed on the board. First and then I used an angle finder to get the correct angle, and here’s.

My circular saw to cut it while is attached. Another option is to clamp your board in place, a mark, your cut and then cut it on your bench and then attach it afterwards. Both worked fine and then just repeated the whole process again on the other side, and now it’s time for the roof.

I decided to use this bevel cedar siding because I saw my kids swingset had it and I figured if it’s good enough for that. It could be good enough for this, and I’m, not an expert at this at all. I do not know if this is going to work.

All I know is that they’re supposed to overlap by at least an inch. So I marked an inch on all the ends of the boards and then just line them up and nail them into place, using siding nail, also making sure on that first piece that the overhang was equal around on all sides.

I did a ton of research on roofs before I decided on this, and there are ton of other options. There’s asphalt there’s metal there’s. Living rubes do whatever you feel comfortable doing all the building is done and it’s time.

To finish it, I decided to use this Thompson’s WaterSeal because it seemed like it was easy to apply and it was. It really was, but I think I’m, going to have to reapply it every year so, but it was easy enough that I think that I’m.

Okay with that and I like the way that it made the cedar look. I’m very happy with how it came out after it dried. The last thing to do is just to attach some of the accessories that I got. This stuff will hold my kids chalk, their safety gear like their elbow pads and knee pads, and then the last accessory to put on or the hooks for my kids helmets and it’s done.

I really hope that you guys enjoyed this one. It was fun for me to do something a little bit different by building something outside of my shop. So thank you for watching there you have it it’s complete.

I’m, really happy with how it came out. Despite all the mistakes that I made, one of the biggest mistakes I made was that I did not want such a big gap in between the board’s by the time. I realized this.

I just didn’t want to go out to the store and buy some more material, so I just dealt with it if it becomes an issue. I can add another board a thin board in there to prevent the rain from coming in, but I will, on my plans, give you an option if you like the bigger spaces or if you don’t, you could just add another board another.

I don’t know if it’s a mistake, but something that I’m, not really an expert. So I don’t know if it will hold up the top edge over there. I’m a little concerned. Rain might come in and I needed to add some sort of drip edge so that’s, something that I’ll have to wait and see if it’s a problem, and I can always try to fix it afterwards And a lot of other mistakes were made like this wasn’t supposed to come through to get whatever math is hard biggest lesson that I learned on this is that I need to plan out my builds a little bit better beforehand and then silly Mistakes like this won’t happen.

So in the end, I’m happy with how my shed came out, and I’m happy overall. My kids finally have a place to store all their stuff. I just really hope they’re gonna actually put their stuff away from now on, and it won’t be scattered around in my yard. If you’re not up to the task of building this yourself, maybe you should look into pre-built, portable sheds.