The Shed I've Always Wanted Part 2

I've finished the shed - first read Part 1 (second post below) if you've not done so!

After doing the frame and the roof, I did the horizontal cladding.  It might not be the normal way, but I found it much easier to work downwards, starting by tucking the top piece of tongue and grooved cladding under the eaves.  Later on I fitted a small piece at the top between the rafters; the need for this piece is why you can't do the roof before the sides, although I did add the battens and membrane at this stage.  As the front has a higher wall plate than the other sides (to allow for the door), I did that side last, but I carefully checked continually that everything was level so that the cladding looks OK.  Doing the cladding is quite a noisy job as there are so many nails and also the structure naturally acts like a sound box; hence I took my time and tried to do it in short noisy periods spread over several days.

The roof was next.  I decided to use slate as (a) all other roofs in the vicinity are slate and (b) when I looked at the cost of modern "tiles" they were all quite expensive.  When you add in the extra cost of decent boards on the roof, the total is only a bit less than buying slates (which only need battens not boards).  There's also the other point that I like to experience doing things myself in the traditional way, and a shed is a good place to learn.

I made sure that I had everything ready before I started.  I had some membrane left from doing the extension (see this post and others at that time) so I needed slates and some ridge tiles, plus nails.  In anticipation of this task I had already acquired slating tools as my birthday present from 'Er Indoors, and the cutter was invaluable.  When I had a roof structure ready, I found that my ridge tiles were all the wrong angle and I was one short; I went back to the yard and got four swapped plus an extra, all for £10.  I also found when I had finished that I had too many tiles, like, 35 spare! This was a bit of over-supply but I'd rather do that than run out when I need two to finish.  I also had to buy some NHL5 for the mortar under the ridge tiles; fortunately the only place within 30 miles that sells this had precisely one bag when I called in on my way back with the ridge tiles.  The roof was also a noisy job, and I bet the neighbours were pleased when I finished! The last two day's work were done on Tuesdays when my immediate neighbour is out all day.

After the roof there were a lot of little jobs, plus the small question of the door, which used my last pieces of cladding - somehow I had EXACTLY the right number of 3m and 2.4m lengths without having a load of 1m bits left.  Well, there were some 60cm bits and these were used as one of the storage shelves.  Another shelf is comprised of old floorboards resting on two of the rafters from the old extension (all left lying around in the garden for three years!) .  Even better, the sturdy workbench has a horizontal frame which is the lower half of the old front door (also left in the garden), and the top is two spare pieces of our 4cm bamboo kitchen worktop (found under the stairs).  As I've said before, I like recycling things, and the garden is a lot neater now.

So, here's the finished shed, at last:

It's not practicable to take a photo that shows the shelves, but the storage ones are on the right inside, and the work bench is on the left under the window. There is a final job which is to provide mains electrical power to it...

Feeling Older - Postscript

I wrote earlier this year (see here) about feeling older.  I now have a couple of postscripts to that entry.

Firstly, I have now used my senior's bus pass for the first time; mind you, I did forget the conditions and boarded a bus at 8.57am, only to be told that I could not use it before 9.00 am. I was tempted to try to beat him to the next stop, but then decided to wait for the next one.

Secondly, I recently had my hair cut in a different hairdresser's as my usual one had a queue.  I had a nice chat with the young woman and, when she finished, she charged me just £5.20. I thought this was cheap as the usual one costs £11, so I gave her a decent tip; then on my way out I checked their prices - she had charged me the "seniors rate" without me asking! Not good for my self-esteem, but I'll go back there.

Thinking of haircuts, when I had just moved to London a few years ago, I tried several places for a decent haircut.  At one unisex place, the young woman did a very nice cut and trimmed the hair in my ears (nasty sign of ageing) with the clippers.  Then, to remove the loose hair, she BLEW in my left ear!!  I think she realised that this was not the done thing (even though I was too surprised to comment!) as she didn't do the same on the other side.  I didn't go back there - I found a proper men's barber (just a few yards from Bermondsey Tube Station, if you're interested).

The Shed I've Always Wanted Part 1

I've been building a shed! Not just an ordinary shed, but a shed that looks good, will be useful and should outlast me. 

I already have one shed which I bought in 2011; it arrived on the back of a small truck and I was able to assemble it myself.  It only measures 7' x 5', which is a bit small for anything other than storage.  In fact, it is so small and crowded that I can hardly get inside it.  Frankly, it's a bit cheap and cheerful, and the roof is already sagging, so when I have finished Shed #2, everything will be moved from #1 so that I can repair that one.  My intention is that it will remain a storage shed, whilst #2 will be the place where I can do things in a decent amount of space; it will also store a few things like our camping kit which is currently kept in a large metal cupboard in the garden. The cupboard needs to go, as it is kept partly dry by an ugly old green tarpaulin.

The new shed is, I admit, a bit over-engineered (I am a chartered engineer after all!). It is basically designed as though someone was going to live in it (which I am NOT going to do).  I designed my shed in my head; the only drawings were a couple of sketches when I was ordering materials, just to make sure that I didn't forget something.  I also used Excel to get the dimensions of the sloping roof etc - even I cannot do hyperbolic functions mentally! The structure is tanalized C16 4 x 2, with an insulated floor supported on 9 brick piers, plus a slate roof (because it looks right).

The house shed measures only 10' x 6', but I feel that this is as large as the available space allows.  The only space large enough is on the raised ground beside the house, just inside the back gate, so it looks larger than it actually is.  I felt that 8' x 6' was a bit small but didn't want a huge shed, so 10' x 6' was a good compromise.  This gives 60 sq ft and I worked out that two sheets of 8' x 4' plywood were 64 sq ft, so a careful bit of cutting gave me four pieces for the floor and a 2' x 2' bit left over.  The long side is the side visible from our kitchen so I wanted the ridge of the roof to go across the short length, so that a gable end is seen. The visible long side has a window (see later) and the door.

Firstly I had to make the nine brick piers to support three beams.  The holes were dug and 4" of concrete inserted, then recycled bricks were set and built up - levelling was fun but a 5ft spirit level helped.

Then I had to make sure that my joists were going to support the edges of the bits of floor plywood, so the floor has ten joists (including two edges, plus the other two edges at right angles) which are separated by a slightly irregular gap of about 10 inches.  I used one inch structural grade plywood for the floor which is probably over-designed but I did not want to risk a sagging or bouncing floor. The floor also has 75mm Kingspan (= Celotex) insulation between the joists as I didn't want it to get cold (although I haven't yet decided whether to insulate the walls; they can wait).  Then there is a bit of thin OSB ("oriented strand board") on the other side to seal it in - I made the frame first and put the OSB on top (so it was now rigid) and then turned it over, did the insulation and then fitted the plywood floor.  As well as getting the edges supported by joists, I also fitted some half inch plank where the cuts in the floor were at right angles to the joists, so that those edges are nice and rigid as well.  Oh yes, I should mention that everything was screwed not nailed - I did try to hire a nail gun but no-one seemed to have one available.  Some photos:

Having done the floor, I used it as the platform to assemble the frames for the walls: two identical rectangles for the short ends, and one larger rectangle for the long back wall.  The two ends were erected and held in place by temporary supports, then I put up the back frame and screwed it all together, with a temporary joist at head height across the front to hold the sides in place.  The roof was next - I cut both ends of ten 5x2 rafters plus a bird's mouth, and a board to fit as the ridge, with five rafters each side.  The question was  - how to erect this on my own? My solution was to screw rafters #2 and #4 to one side of the board, and rafter #3 to the other side, then lift it all up, placing the bird's mouth cuts on the top of the two end frames, and then screwing them down (having previously marked the positions). I could then screw on the other halves of rafters #2, #3 and #4, and fit a horizontal member to each pair of rafters to complete each truss.  Finally, I could fit the 5th truss at the back, then remove the temporary joist at the front to fit the front truss.

The front wall had not been built as the height of the door was higher than the temporary joist that I had fitted, due to my desire to keep the overall height down.  This could now be done and I incorporated a space for the window.  The I finished off the top of the back wall, where I put in another window.  More photos:

The two windows were recycled from an old bathroom window (from the old extension - see here) which had large lower window and an opening narrow top window; I fitted a temporary plank across the top window, cut the frame at the bottom of the top window and made a new frame for the bottom of it, thus giving me two useable windows - the larger for the front and the other for the back. Sometime I will replace the glass, but it's not a high priority!

To be continued...