How to Build A Shed DIY


I searched around Youtube and found one of the top videos showing all the steps to build a custom Shed. This shed is built with corrugated steel siding, soffit, and roof. It has a window in the back and was built with a refurbished door.

Hey guys, this is Paul from Smart Easy DIY. Today, I wanted to make a video to show you how I made this eight by twelve shed for storing my tools and different things like that.

This isn’t really that complicated to do. It requires a few skills but hopefully I’ll be able to show you kind of step by step some of the things that I did. Some of the things I did some time lapses just to kind of shorten the video. I didn’t want to make an incredibly long video so hopefully this will help you and give you some ideas of how I did it.

Start With Framing The Base Of The Shed.

I’m just kind of in the middle of it here. I got some different stuff here going on and I just got the base done. Its eight by twelve give you a reference and got stuff kind of sitting around everywhere here.

Some of my lumber, there’s an old door I salvaged that I’m going to use. And just working off my truck here and anyways, so yeah, I’ll kind of update you as it goes along here.

Alright guys so what I did is use two four by six is for the bottom there, just for the skids in case you ever want to move it. And then I’m using two by six, eight I’m just going to two foot on center. I think that’ll be plenty strong for what I need. My skids aren’t exactly straight so to make sure that I get it nice and straight, I put a string along there. Once I get the two edge ones up and I squared across corners, make sure that the thing is square.

So first I just nailed those joists with galvanized nails but my nailer didn’t want to drive them very well because their ring shank I ended up putting some nails in and also putting some screws in just to make sure they’re anchored good.

Add Plywood To The Frame Base For Flooring.

Alright, so I got all the framing done and I’m ready to put plywood on. So I’m using treated plywood for the floor using treated two-by-sixes. Everything on the bottom is treated and remember if you’re nailing treated to use galvanized nails.

Measure, Cut, And Build Your Roof Truss.

Next thing I’m doing is laying out truss rafters. Before I do anything with the walls and all that. So I laid it out on top of this thing here because this is exactly the size that I need. And I decided to go with an eight twelve pitch four twelve just wasn’t going to give me enough room in the end here because on the backside there I’m planning to make a door to access up in the rafters from the outside to store stuff, long stuff.

So anyways, so what I did first is I just cut a eight twelve on the ends of these guys right here and then I lined it up with the bottom right here because I know this is where it needs to go as far as spacing. And then so I just did that with these top ones and screwed them down temporarily to the floor here. Then I laid this one on top of this and figure out what the angle is and cut that and put it right in place.

So I just kind of got it tacked together right now as you can see. So then the next thing I’m planning to do is make plywood gussets for this bottom part right here and then for the peak up here. So I’ll show you that once it’s all put together.

So I got my plywood patches cut in my particular instance it was twenty-four of these first kind and then twelve of the other because the end trusses only get them on the inside. They don’t get them on the outside. Alright so I got a lay out here and I wanted to show you really quick what I did and you can do this if it works for you.

Now that I got it all set up here, I just screwed a block here so it can’t go up any further than this and I screwed some up there in the peak as you can see there. And I did some down at the bottom here. Now what all this is is I just decided I want to eight inch overhang. So I had to do this six and a half and then once my inch and a half goes on the outside there it’ll be eight inches.

So that’s what I decided to do on this one. Hopefully it’s big enough; hopefully it looks okay on the building. Anyways, and so now that you got your jig altogether, what I do anyways is unscrew it and then you can use one of those for cutting the rest of them so they’re all the same. And then once you’re all set, then you can start assembly.

So once I’m working on my trusses here, I kind of showed the time lapse of me doing one. But what I like to do is I like to screw the peaks together up there. I slide them down and then screw them together. And then I like to put a screw in right here. That way it keeps it tight against the jig there.

Do that on both sides. Then I also like to put a screw in down there when I put this bottom piece on, do that on both sides and then I can start doing patches and I’m nailing my patches on. My nails are a little bit long, so I’m angling it for the first side and when I do the other side, it’s thick enough. I can just nail it straight on. But my nails are two and three, eight ideally I should have two inch nails.

Okay, so now my trusses are all built. So the middle trusses get double patches the end trusses only get patches on one side because of getting steel on the outside.

Measure, Cut, And Build Shed Walls.

So I’ve been cutting studs here. You can see I’m laying out my walls here. I decided to go for about seven foot high for the sides. I wanted to go a little taller. I think typically they’re six and a half or so on a shed. But I’m going to go seven because I have this big man door I think I showed you before, but I want to make sure that can fit in here. And I’m just going to go single top plate because it’s just a shed.

It doesn’t need too much. So I’m going to use my nice flat deck to build my wall here, just studs two foot on center and then I’m going to put them all off to the side, build them all and then stand them up.

Well guys, it’s a new day on day two here I got done all I could last night and it got dark on me. So that’s as far as I got. Alright, well anyways, so I just wanted to go over a couple of things here quick.

Brace Your Walls So You Can Add The Trusses.

I’m getting ready to set trusses and I set the walls last night but I braced them this morning. So what I would recommend, this is entirely up to you how you want to do it, but show you how I did it.

On each wall I put a brace at about a forty-five or you know just approximately forty-five is the perfect brace anyways, but it’s nothing too critical. But make sure everything is level and then I measure across corners too to make sure that your walls are nice and square and everything. And then what I did here, I’m going to show you a quick what I did for setup.

So I’m going to set my trusses on the end here. So I just put a two by four on the outside there and made it stick up high enough so it for sure catches the peak. I can’t put it right in the middle because of the windows there.

Ideally, you put it right in the middle of the catch the peak. But anyways, so what I did, you can see how I fastened it there just on the outside I put a couple of blocks just to make sure, put some screws in it so it’s easy to take off. And yeah, so that’s what I’m going to do to catch my first truss and set it up there and then I can brace all the others off of that.

Attach Your Trusses To The Shed.

Well the trusses are set that went really quick. I’m actually standing up on top of my truck to get this video because it’s kind of far down there. Anyways, just to get the elevation to show the truss is here a little bit. As you could see, the truss setting went really well. I did that time lapse of it. Just thought you would enjoy that maybe. And anyways, so you might be wondering about how secure these are.

Well, if it’s windy at all, I wouldn’t recommend just setting them up like that. But with me putting two screws on one side of the stud up into the truss on that side, and then the opposite side over there, they kind of have opposite tension. And then with bracing the ends. So pretty soon I’m going to be putting the roof nailers on, but in the meantime since it’s really calm, these things set pretty well that way.

So it was just about out of my reach, but I was able to do it and anyways, just to give you ideas that you can do it yourself, if you can reach it like I could. So anyways, yeah, I just wanted to show you what I did and now I am going to get some roof nailers on.

Add Your Shed Door.

Well, I’m ready to set the door and it’s kind of not the greatest looking door as you’ve seen before. I just have it laying there, but it’s a free door, you know. So I’m going to try to get it in here. It’s a forty-two inch door and that’s kind of unusual. Normally they’re very expensive, but since it’s free, I’m going to make it work for my shed here.

Add Steel Sheets To Siding, Soffit, And Roof.

Alright, so I got all my framing done. I’m ready for steel. I wanted to show you quick, what I did on the overhangs here. I put a little block in the end like that and you’ll see why. And then I got blocking up through there. So I have something to screw the soffit into. And along here I’m supporting it every three feet that should be sufficient for the sides. So I just wanted to show you what I did there and I’m ready for steel as long as it doesn’t rain on me.

Okay. So first of all, I’m going to do corrugated on the soffit and on the siding I decided and do regular standard rib on the roof, which I’ll show you later once it’s all done. I want to show you a quick how I am cutting this. This is DIY, so you just got to do what you got to do.

But anyways, I got some pallets here that I got laid down and I got some cover sheets that came with it that get the scratches. So I put that on the bottom upside down on this corrugated with the tool I have.

It works best to cut it upside down depending on where it lands in the rib. So I put the one underneath to protect it and then I’m cutting on top of that for my soffit. So I’m ripping all my soffit at eight inches wide and I’ll do a quick time lapse showing what I’m using here. And this awesome tool that I’m using, it’s an attachment that goes on your drill. I’ll link right up here in the top corner where I did a video demonstrating how well that thing works.

So if you’re doing much metal cutting at all, it’s worthwhile checking it out. I’ll include a link in the video description below the video where I got it for a really good price. You guys can check it out there. Check out how awesome it works for this.

Alright, so looking at the shed here, I did painted corrugated steel on the outside. I did regular steel on the roof, the regular standard rib. I just wanted to change it up a little and do something different.

The door, of course I didn’t get time to finish yet. I got to wait for warm weather because I had to do this kind of over a course of a couple of weeks. So just wanted to show you really quick, will approach here. I still got to do a step. It’s a little bit dark in here, but there you can kind of see.

I put a window in the back there as well, so it’s a little more light in here, but it’s really quite roomy and this is with it all done course you can see looking out there. Now what I wanted to do, this is just a thought that I had, but I want to store some long stuff up in the peak there. So I put a little access door in the back corner back there, which I’ll show you from the outside. It might not be ideal, but I want it to be able to get some long stuff in here, a door that you hardly ever have to access. But in case you do, you have that option.

 Alright, so I’m just going to walk around here, kind of show you what I did. The color that I went with was forest green on the roof and desert brown on the siding. Alright, just to show you this access hole in the back here, I’ll put stainless steel bolts from the inside out and I put wing nuts on the outside. You can see the bottom kind of stands open a little bit. I’m missing a bolt yeah. I need to put another one in there just so it lays nice and tight and the top is tucked up under the overhang there. So I never have to worry about rain coming in.

So I just wanted to show you, I need to get a step ladder to get up there, but that’s just so I have some 10 foot siding and stuff that I can’t flex and get up in the rafters from the inside. So I want to be able to access it from the outside for the really long stuff.

The thing about this shed that you will notice is that I did overhangs on it all the way around and I could have saved a lot of money and time probably by not doing overhangs. And you know, thinking about it now that I did the project, it would have been a lot simpler and easier to do it without the overhangs. So if you want to make it a lot faster, just skip the overhangs. But I guess it all depends on what you’re looking for in a building.

For me, I just like the looks of overhangs on a building. I just think it makes them look a lot better. But it definitely did take me a lot longer so you can decide as you go how you want to do it.

 Alright guys, well I hope you enjoyed this little project that I did on the shed and like I said, I couldn’t show near everything because it would take way too long. But I just wanted to show you some steps. So it kind of gives you some ideas on the bottom there I still need to build a step. That’s what I’m going to do below the door. But I got a temporary step in place and that’s just a project down the road. So for now I can get my tools and generator and stuff like that in out of the weather. And that’s the purpose of this shed.

Woodworking Joke:

When Mrs. Smith called the furniture repair shop to ask for advice about fixing her wiggly dining room chairs, she was surprised when the woodworker began to explain in detail what she should do.

“Thank you!” she said. “I’m curious – does your boss know that you talk people through doing their own repairs, rather than trying to persuade them to bring the job in?”

“Oh, it’s his idea,” the woodworker said. “We find that we get a lot more repair work to do after people try to fix things themselves.”

Kevin Nelson

I will always have a special place in my heart for woodworking. I have such fond memories working on projects with my parents on the weekends in the garage growing up. We built tables, shelves, a backyard shed, 10' base for a water slide into the pool, 2 story fort playhouse with a fire pole, and so much more. This woodworking blog allows me to write helpful articles so others can enjoy woodworking as much as we have.

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