Craftsman’s First Shed

No yard is complete without a shed, but these days not many homes come with one. People store most of their yard tools in their garage, or worse, in their driveway, or even worse – just laying in the yard! Regardless, your tools for yard work, gardening, and crafts are all better off when stored in a shed. A shed can be kept organized and clean, whereas other storage options often lead to disorganized messes. You have several options when it comes to solving your shed problem.

You could have one built for you, or even have a prefab shed manufactured and delivered ready to go. However, if you’re a carpentry enthusiast, then you may want to try your hand at building your shed yourself. It’s actually very simple, and building a shed is a great way to learn and practice certain design and construction principles that are essential to any future projects.


Getting Started 

There are several ways to build a shed, but the beginning is almost certainly the same no matter how you decide to build your shed: preparing the space that the shed will be built upon. First, you should select a space that will be able to accommodate the size of the shed you are planning. Having done so, you must level the land.

Building on un-level land is very difficult and not advised. You will have a much easier time building your shed on level land; furthermore, your final product will not have to account for changes in elevation from one end of the shed to the other.

Having prepared your spot, you must lay the foundation. You can use evenly spaced posts for this, or you could use plywood sheets that have been treated for contact with the ground. Alternatively, you can also use concrete blocks.

Support beams should then be set across the posts, plywood, or foundation. These beams should be secured using metal straps or another appropriate means of securing the beams, depending on how you are laying the foundation.

Getting in on the Ground Floor 

Rim joists and floor joists should be laid across the support beams; you are now constructing what will be the floor of your shed. Blocking should be installed to support the inner portion of the floor.

With your floor’s frame sufficiently laid out, you can hammer in the plywood that will be your floor. Make sure it lines up with the rim joists you put in; if you are too short, you will have problems installing the walls, and if you are too far over, damage can be done to your floor.

Just Another Shed with a Wall 

Next come the walls of your shed. Begin with a frame, with the top and bottom beams the same length as the floor. Space the vertical studs the same as the spacing between the shed’s floor joists; this is just simpler, and will be easy for you to remember should you ever need to do any work on the shed in the future.

It’s best to do two opposing sides at once; begin with the back wall, and then do the front. The front wall will obviously need a door frame, and it will also need to be slightly taller than the back wall, as the roof will slant upwards to send falling water behind your shed.

The sidewalls come next. You will have to cut the tops of the vertical students to account for the slant on the roof.

The Roof, the Roof, the Roof of your Shed 

Next you will need to construct the roof of the shed. Place rafters across the roof, and separate them using blocking. Make sure that your rafters overhang your walls so that they are protected from inclement weather. Ideally, you should keep your measurements simple by spacing your rafters as you spaced your floor joists.

Just as you did with your floor, nail plywood to the roof. You’ll need more plywood for the roof than you used for your floor if you built the roof with an overhang.

by nikkidavis.

Finishing Touches 

Attach siding to the walls to finish them. You can use whatever material you like, but some kind of textured siding or plywood will give your shed a professional look. For the roof, use rolls of tarpaper. Try starting at the lower end of the roof’s slope and work to the higher end. Make sure that each roll of paper slightly overlaps the one below it to keep rain from flowing into the cracks. Alternatively, you can use shingles or another roofing material, but those are considerably more difficult to use.

This is just one way you can build a shed, however. If this is your first time undertaking shed building, it’s a good idea to use a kit like the kind available from Stoltzfus Structures. It will make your work simpler, easier, and you can try being more original and unique your next time around.

Prefabricated Garages: More Than Just a Place for Your Stuff

There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of reality television shows about hoarders who need to be taught how to clean out their nigh-impassable homes, or storage units that have been left for so long that they must be emptied out and sold at auction. Yes, America is full of people who have a lot of stuff they aren’t willing to throw away, but which they don’t immediately need in their homes. You’re probably no different!

Sure, you aren’t a hoarder; you don’t have towers of old magazines and newspapers forming load-bearing walls in your home, nor do you have storage units spread across the state, unpaid-for and soon to be emptied out and picked over by a weird dude who always wears a bandana and shades, even at night. Still, you’ve got a lot of stuff; it’s in our nature to hold on to things we think we could use, or which has sentimental value. What are you to do with it, other than keep it around the house?

Stuff, Stuff Everywhere, and Not a Place to Store It 

The answer is, put it in your garage. A garage is a fantastic place for storage; your things are kept dry and, for the most part, in the dark. Garages generally have an open floor plan and relatively high and open ceilings, meaning you can easily put quite a bit of your things against the walls or among the rafters. Just don’t put so much stuff in your garage that you end up with no space to park your car; it’s kind of important to protect your car from harsh weather if you expect to have it long!

If you don’t have a garage, never fear. There’s no need to build a garage from the ground-up; that’s a massive, and potentially expensive, project for what amounts to storage space for your extra stuff and your car. Instead, invest in a more affordable and just-as-effective alternative solution: a prefabricated garage.

The Garage for You 

Prefabricated garages can be custom-designed to fit your needs, whatever they may be. Perhaps you need a particular color and/or material for the roof and walls in order for your garage to match your home, or perhaps you need a special layout if your garage is to fit onto the space you’ve laid out for it. Regardless of your particular needs, the manufacturer of a prefabricated garage – such as Stoltzfus Structures – can accommodate your garage needs with ease.

A prefabricated garage can be manufactured and delivered in a relatively brief amount of time, from order to delivery. Furthermore, upon delivery, the garage will be assembled by professionals, rather than forcing you to figure out how to put your garage together yourself. You can rest assured that your prefab garage has been put together by someone with an intimate knowledge of how to construct them.

Protection and Convenience 

A prefabricated garage can be customized to have special areas for storage – you might consider adding extra space for future storage purposes, though you can always have another garage added on if you absolutely need to. Storage aside, however, a garage also serves the important purpose of protecting your car from the elements and from potential vandalism or thievery.

First and foremost, winters can be hard on a car. Sleet, snow, and ice can do serious damage to the paint job, not to mention the time you lose in the morning when you have to scrape the ice and snow off your windshields in order to see while driving. The protection a prefab garage offers your car doesn’t end there, however; prefab garages are great for temperature control. Your car will be warmer on winter mornings and colder on summer afternoons after it has spent time in your garage, as opposed to out in the chilly winter wind or under the summer sun.

You don’t need a sprawling garage for it to do everything you need: protect your car and store your stuff. Whether you need a one, two, or even three-car garage, you can have it made however you please thanks to the manufacturing expertise brought to the prefabrication of your garage. Why not give Stoltzfus Structures a call and ask to take a tour of some of their prefabs? You’ll like what you see.