Garden Sheds - Picking the Right Design

All garden sheds are not created equal. The design is of utmost importance, whether you're building from scratch with a good set of shed plans, hammering a pre-fab shed kit, or bolting a steel building together. There is no one perfect garden shed design, to be sure ... but there is one design aspect to be avoided, whenever possible.

My pet peeve with many garden sheds is that they're just too short. I've said this before, but it bears repeating. A low shed roof won't do you any favors.

The smartest storage shed designs incorporate generous roof lines for two basic reasons: headroom and storage space.

The headroom problem is obvious. Smacking your head against the rafters is never fun ... and it certainly isn't easy on the back if you have to stoop every time you go to get something out of the shed.

But it's the storage space issue that's key. You're putting this miniature piece of architecture in your backyard to store stuff, right? (Hey, it's a storage shed, after all!) Why wouldn't you build or buy a shed with the maximum amount of storage space, no matter the square footage?

That's where the tall salt box, gable and gambrel designs excel. With all that space up in the rafters, you can store lots of stuff overhead. And not just any old stuff ... the rafters are a great place to store long stuff like extra lumber, piping, rolls of landscape fabric, garden fencing, and long handled tools ... just the kind of stuff that clutter up the floor of a typical shed. Of course, you'll want to take a good bit of care in what you store up there and how you stow it ... the last thing you want is a shovel whacking you in the head.

In any given size, a well designed high-roofed garden shed can easily pick up 30% more square feet of storage space, when compared to a low slung design. And that's just the utilitarian aspect ... I won't get into the aesthetics (for now) ... :)