You’re going to build a shed – Don’t do anything until you have read this.

Get professionally designed plans. It’ll save you time and money!

Professional plans don’t have to cost you a lot of money an in fact will save you a lot of money as you’ll know exactly what you need before you even start your build.  If you decide to build without a plan, you can expect to have to make adjustments along the way.  Anyone who has built anything will tell you that making adjustments often means spending more money.

Pro plans for building sheds are easy to follow, give you all the information up front and you get an illustration of exactly how to put it all together.

So Simple – Don’t build castles.

With huge quantities of shed plans available, it’s easy to want to complicate your project with shutters and siding and such things.  Remember that this is just a shed, a storage space and if that’s all it is, then don’t waste money on things that won’t make it more functional.

Don’t do anything until you’ve thought the process through.

When you are planning your project, you’ll want to mentally go through the entire process before you get started.  What tools you are going to need to complete the job and what do you have available right now.  At the end of your project, what is going to be inside your shed and how big are the items and do they match the size of your shed.

The best plans will also include a cut chart and if you take this to the lumber yard, they’ll cut your wood for your ensuring that you don’t have to worry about cutting it yourself.

Planning permission granted or not?

Your final task before you start is to find out if you can build your shed.  Most small sheds don’t need building permits, but check before you start.  There is nothing worse than building a shed only to discover that you weren’t allowed to and now you have to take it down and pay a fine.

My Third Shed – The Pool Bar

Building the pool bar was a little more involved.  We have a really great tiled area so the ground was level and as this is the shed closest to the main house, we really wanted it to look a little nicer.  We’ll be storing the garden furniture in there as well as the pool toys and maybe at the far end will have a bar.

Painting it was really imporatant because we are still using reclaimed wood, which is keeping the costs way down.

The pool area ( although no pool as yet) is looking great and we really want this to be the focal point of the garden.  The shed has electricity for the blender which makes it a much more versatile building.  Including the power into the construction didn’t cost much and we will definately do it with all our future sheds.  (theres nothing worse than trying to find something in the shed in the dark and on rainy days it’s sometimes hard to see at the back of the shed.)

As you can see we didn’t have to worry about foundations as much for this shed and went with a really simple wood base foundation.