Building a Shed

The decision to build your own shed should not be taken lightly. One one hand, building a shed is a relatively easy project that has little potential to ruin your life during the construction phase -- when compared to a renovation or expansion of your actual living space, that is. On the other hand, there's always the chance that you'll foul something up in the process, or even worse, injure yourself or a helper.

Yes kids, you can try this at home, but you'll do best with direct adult supervision.

While wood is the best way to go for smaller projects, steel structures are appropriate for larger projects, such as garages and working barns.

If your project is modest in scope, building from a set of shed plans will take (at the least) the better part of a weekend. Building a shed from scratch can eat up a good bit of time.

In a hurry? With a shed kit, you might get done in a day or less ... it all depends on the complexity of the design and level of prefabrication.

It's all about man hours. While I built my shed all by my lonesome, I wouldn't recommend that approach. You'll do best working with a buddy, preferably one who has some experience in construction.

You won't need a trailer load of exotic power tools to get started; a circular saw, a tape measure, a level, and a couple of hammers will get you pretty far. Of course, the more power you have available, the faster the work. If you have to build your shed off the grid, hand sawing can get pretty tedious pretty fast. Battery-power (or a generator) will surely speed up the process.