Garden Shed

I have a plan to build a garden shed in our back yard for Bonnie. I'd love to build it soon but things are tight right now. I need to get my butt back to work and put some money aside for this project. But I will build it.

My plan is to build it in the Fall of 2008. I could build it a few months earlier, but I hate working under the hot sun and this project is going to take at least two months. So I'll be building Bonnie's garden shed when things are getting hot and heavy over the upcoming elections. It will make for great radio as I work.

I'm going to buy a nail gun for this. I have a brad gun, my first pneumatic tool, and it's a wonder I ever managed to live without one. The darn things are so easy to use and cut jobs into half or even more. The nail gun is going to save my wrist and my elbow and besides that, it will just be plain fun to use. The shed I have in mind is a modification of a plan I found in a wonderful book by David Stiles. Bonnie bought me this book many years ago when I had plans to build a shed in Oregon. That shed never came to be, but this shed will.

The shed is built with posts and beams instead of standard 2x4 framing. The floor will be dry laid brick or pavers. The siding I want to use will be pine or fir board and batten. The roof will be asphalt shingles. Cedar shingles or shakes would be nice, but apart from being pricy, they simply would be too much at odds with our house.

The plans call for a large skylight on what will be the south side of this shed. I'm going to put the skylight (or skylights) on the north side instead to keep the hot direct sun out. Likewise I'm going to put the potting bench on the opposite side from that called for in Mr. Stiles plans.

One of the best things is that we'll have something like a ten foot by twelve foot area between the south side of the shed and the wall by the arroyo that runs south of our property. We're going to make this into a vegetable garden. I'll run plumbing to one of the south corners of the shed so we can have a tap for the garden. I might even pipe into the shed with another tap there (I can build a french drain under the pavers at the tap's location).

I'll write more about this project as I obtain materials (we'd love to find used clay brick for the floor, and I wouldn't mind using old barn siding for my boards and battens). Until then, I'm afraid I'll just have to refine my sketches.