A quick start guide to
designing and building a custom garden shed.
You don’t have to be an expert carpenter
to design and build a
custom garden shed. The secret is to choose
a basic garden shed design which best suits your
purpose and make custom alterations until you have
exactly the shed you need. Custom garden sheds can
be used for storing anything from gardening tools
and equipment, to the kids bikes’ and skateboards,
or even firewood. Larger sheds can even be used as a
spare bedroom or office.
A good option is to design your shed on your
computer. Shed design software makes the job of
custom designing your shed very easy. The software
will show you images of how the shed will look as
you add custom features, and provide you with
complete plans, instructions, and a list of
materials.
Four essential
things to remember before you begin building your
garden shed:
1. Check with your local authorities to make sure
the garden shed you’re planning to build complies with
the relevant building codes, even if it’s only a small
shed. You may be required to submit your shed plans
for formal approval before you build.
2. Make sure you fully understand every stage of
the shed construction process before you start. Don’t
just figure it out as you go along! Have all the
building instructions printed out, and keep them
handy.
3. Do the math! Be absolutely sure you have
calculated all your dimensions and quantities
correctly. Check your sums, double check, and have
someone else triple check just to be sure. The great
thing about using custom shed design software is that
you can be confident all the arithmetic will be
correct.
4. Buy all the tools and materials you need to
build your custom shed before you begin. If you find
that you’re short of something half way through, you
may not be able to buy additional supplies of exactly
the same type or in the same color.
For information on custom garden shed design,
please read this article on
using computer
software to design your garden shed.
