Raam Dev’s Weblog

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"No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself." - Thomas Mann

Building a shed from scratch

This was the first time I had ever roofed anything, and I was happy it came out as nicely as it did. The roofing was a lot of work, and being up there the whole day with searing heat was lots of fun. You can get an idea of how the asphalt shingles went together in the picture of the unfinished corner. The entire roof was done in that way, layer by layer. I did not use a nail gun to secure the shingles as I did not have a roofing nailer. All the shingles were nailed by hand (the real way!).











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10 Comments, Comment or Ping

  1. rA

    excellent job…now lets build it on a bigger scale with garage doors = D

  2. DJT

    Awesome job there… I too built my shed. Purchased at Home Depot and screwed it together (vinyl shed) :p I wish I had the time and know-how to do something like that.

  3. WOW WOW WOW — I CANT DECIED WHAT I LIKE BETTER — THE SHED — OR THE FANTASTIC BLOG OF THE SHED–

    KIP LENIX AND START WRITING–
    IF I TELL YOU SOME STORIES WE CAN START DOING NOVELS–
    I THINK WE COULD GET THE WHOLE FAMILY INVOVED AND HAVE A FANTASTIC NEW CAREER –HOBBY — LIFE STYLE —

    PS… I AM NOT DOING THE SPELL CHECKING !!!!!

  4. tom

    fvckin awesome

  5. Zip

    Great job Raam !!! I got one question, how did you finish the outside facing your neighbor’s shed?

  6. Thanks Zip!

    I left about 3′ of space between the fence and the shed on the neighbors side, so it was easy to get access to that side (though it was difficult to get on a ladder with only 3′ of space!).

    If you’re building a shed this big, I wouldn’t recommend trying to put it right on the property line — you should at least be able to walk all the way around it.

    You’ll notice I did build the shed a few inches from the smaller, older shed that was already on the property. To do this, I needed to finish that entire exterior wall BEFORE putting the wall up. Finishing the wall nearly tripled its weight and it was a lot more difficult to stand up.

  7. Linda

    Wow! This is an amazing shed! Wonderful description of how you achieved this as well. Thank you!

  8. Thanks Linda! It was quite the learning experience (especially the roof trusses!).

  9. Rick

    How did you raise the walls up after building them on the floor

  10. Hi Rick,

    I simply lifted the walls into place (human muscle power) and temporarily secured them using 2×4’s diagonally attached to the shed floor (note that you should nudge the wall into the correct place before doing this).

    As you can imagine, the first wall was the most difficult, especially since I did it by myself. Even the smallest amount of wind made controlling the 16′ wall very difficult. I used a sledge hammer to nudge the wall into place before securing it to the floor. If you have one or two people help you, it will make raising the walls that much easier.

    I also made sure to build the walls oriented on the shed floor so that I could simply lift them up. This meant I didn’t need to maneuver the wall very much once it was stood up.

    After the first wall is secured, you can secure the second wall to the first wall as well as the floor, which gives it a lot more stability.

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