Shed Build - Part 1: Foundations
When we bought the house, it came with a tiny metal shed in the back of the garden. Better than nothing, but not great for storing all the garden tools and stuff we have. So we knew we wanted a new one.
And then there was this tree Kaddi didn't like. She wanted it gone, but behind it was a hedge. So felling the tree would leave a huge ugly brown spot. So after some thinking we agreed that this would be the place for the new shed.
Of course I wanted to build the shed myself. Of course I had never built a shed before. So everything was a big learning by doing exercise. And of course everything took much much much longer than I thought it would.
The story below begins in October 2023 and will be told in several posts.
Removing the Tree
How hard can it be to fell a tree? Turns out, easier than we thought. We first cut off all the branches using our small 18V chain saw.
For the trunk we rented a larger electric chainsaw. I cut some wedges and then we pulled it down in two parts, using a rope. It worked great.
More work was to hack the trunk into firewood. But we bought a new ax and it/I made short work of the wood.
All that was left now, was the stump. I spent a lot of time, trying to get it out, but finally I gave up and found a guy with a machine. This remote controlled monster turned the stump into shavings in no time.
Pouring Concrete
For pouring concrete foundations, I built some simple forms from OSB. The Internet recommended WD40 as release agent which worked great.
Each column is about 80cm deep, with some gravel at the bottom and a rebar rod in the middle. The manual for concrete we used, said that instead of premixing, we could put in a layer dry, wet it, wait a bit, then do the next layer. This worked okay, but some of the corners seem not to have gotten enough water and were a bit weak.
When, a few months later, we decided to pour two more columns on the long sides, we made sure to properly mix the layers. That worked better. Lesson learned.
Floor Construction
For the floor, I first constructed a base frame made of 6x8cm beams connected with half lap joints. Then joists are laid across, partly on top and partly between the beams, screwed from both sides.
When we first laid the beams across the corner foundations, it became obvious that we had slightly misaligned them. The rectangle the foundations formed was not parallel to the house and that looked weird. The solution was simple: the frame I built was slightly larger than the foundation rectangle, with each corner having a small overhang to a different side. Somewhat like this:
As I said, this was all learning by doing. In hindsight I think I should have gone with slightly bigger sizes for all of the involved timber here.
Since everything still felt a bit too flimsy (even though the floor boards will add a lot of rigidity later) we decided to add another beam across the middle. This time not supported by concrete but simple ground sleeves. I also added laths onto the side beams directly under the floor boards to give those more support and somewhat reinforce the beams.
So this is where we were in the middle of March this year. Foundations done. Walls and roof next.
Next Part: Shed Build - Part 2: Framing and Roofing