I am so excited to show you this project we have been tackling for the last two months – our garden shed! ย This is the longest project we have worked on so far, pretty much from the week we moved in. It wasn’t a lot of work, but it was not a high priority and always took the back seat when other projects went on. But we finally finished the shed last weekend and we could not be more happy with the result! In today’s post, I am gonna show you how we go from the rotten shed above, to this:
The BEFOREs
The shed was in bad shape when we moved in – all the sidings were rotten, trims started raising from the studs, and many shingles were missing on the roof. There were nothing but trash inside – used construction materials, broken electrical tools, buckets of unknown liquid, and some weird gas tanks. There were shelves running the back side of the shed, and a work bench was left behind, but they were constructed with thin plywood and started sagging in all places.
Cleaning out the shed
The first thing we did was to haul away the construction trash and cleared out everything from the shed:
We also needed to trim the trees and bushes around the shed. As you can see from the photos below, several tree branches were laying on top of the roof and definitely contributed to the missing shingles.
After trimming
Slav also trimmed off some low branches and bushes at the back of the shed, so we had enough room to push a wheel barrel around it.
After cleaning and trimming, we finally had chance to take a good look of the shed. Luckily, all framing studs and roof rafters were in good shape. The studs were bolted down to the concrete pad with galvanized bolts, and the whole framing structures were solid as a rock.
This discovery changed our initial plan, which was to take down the shed completely and rebuild. What we decided to do instead, was to get rid of all the trims and siding, basically demo the shed to the studs, and refresh the shed with new sidings, trims and the roof. We will be adding new storage in the shed to custom-fit our need. Instead using it as an over-flow storage, we would like to make it a garden shed that could get a lot more use.
Or a dog shed? Roxie seemed to enjoy the empty concrete and immediately went in for a nap. Maybe we should leave the shed as a playhouse for the dogs?
Demo the shelves, trims and siding
Now we had a game plan, Slav grabbed his pry bar and got to work:
The rotten trim and siding did not stand a chance – they came right off – sometimes with just bare hands! Removing all the nails and screws took even longer.
Soon, we had a clean frame to work with! We left the roof intact at this moment, since we have not learned roofing yet. There will be the phase II for the shed.
Slav also leveled all the ground around the concrete padding so we can set up proper drainage. There was quiet a bit of loose concrete at the back of the shed and he removed it with a much bigger pry bar.
Powerwash and seal the framing
After all the debris cleaned, the shed was ready for new sidings. But before we do, we would like to give the existing framing a good wash and a protective coat. After watching Slav power-wash our fence, I was eager to give it a try myself. So I volunteered to wash the frame clean.
The dirty frame before
After wash!
It was so much fun – I even wrote Slav’s name on the work bench:
After everything dried, Slav applied two coats of linseed oil on the framing.ย The studs looked so much better that we could hardly tell that they were old lumber from decades ago.
Now it is time for new siding and trims! We got pre-treated, weather-proofing plywood and trims from Lowe’s and a brand new miter saw from Harbor Freight Tools. The shed is about to look sooo good!
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