Spec me a shed

Hi all
Here are some drawings of the area I’ve got to play with.

Restrictions:
Limited to 2.5m height and 15sqm total floor space.
Need to be able to take bikes either around or through the shed from front of shed to back of shed (can’t go through the house).

Budget:
Erm Originally I was thinking of £800 but that’s now stretched to £1000, but I’m open as long as it’s not daft and there are advantages.

Other:
Can’t decide whether to buy ‘off-the-shelf’ and keep is cheap and simple, or maximise the space by going custom. I know you don’t save money by DIY, but it might be more fun. I’m quite happy with DIY timber.
Maximising the useful storage space for bikes/tools/garden stuff is the basic requirement.

Here’s the basic plan:

This shows an option with a standard 12×10 shed, although the door placement will have to be on one end and on one side (14×9 also fits in this orientation).

This shows another idea with a 14×9 shed. Doors on each end.

It’s quite an awkward space to fill without going custom.

Thanks in advance
Alex

corner shed backed into the, errm, corner?

http://www.tigersheds.com/product_detail.asp?prod=167

might be able to get somethign bigger made up for you.

Surely custom build to use all available space is the only way to go. Door at each end and you’re sorted. Having put in a 16’x10′ shed the best advice I can give you is that you can never have too much shed.

corner shed backed into the, errm, corner?

Just been discussing this with my wife. In theory it fits well, but I dont really like the idea of creating an alley down the side of the house. It’s a really blank dull wall (no windows) and it somehow doesn’t feel right.

you can never have too much shed

I’m thinking the same.
This corner of the house is very dark and shadowed – nothing grows there and we may as well fill it with useful storage. We’ve currently got an 8×6 shed in there with 5 bikes crammed into it.

Custom build into the corner, but I would use a corner/triangle shed and then leave a gated pathway alongside the house to the rear garden so you don’t have to go through the shed. That would just be a pain. Also means you don’t get undesirables seeing into the shed, and you can still get access to the garden without leaving the shed unlocked.

Edit: Posted at the same time as you stating you don’t want an alley…a bonus of having an alley means no future potential problems with damp in the house.

spooky_b329
ok – so are you thinking something like this?

That looks like a good plan except I would move the gate inline with the front of the house, extending the shed to meet it. No point losing space and giving would be thieves a corner to hide in.

And I would make a flying lean-to from the house to the shed to make a covered work area in the “corridor”

ok – so we’ve got something a bit like this now:

I still don’t like the idea of a corridor, but I’ll run with it for the moment.
How best to do the roof? If the door needs to be about 1.85m, +floor height + door surround, that leaves approx 0.5m height to play with for the roof.

What’s the boundary marked by? Wall, hedge etc?
I think the last option looks good so far – take it that you can access the rear patio without having to go down the side of the house?

I’d be inclined to build it as long as poss on the 7.32m wall allowing room to get past it to the outside.It really will be a pain when you need to access the back garden, unless you go with the “corridor” idea. It may be that your local planners wont include the “corridor” bit in your total allowed as long as that bit has no doors as such.
One word of caution though, which for me, would change that totally; I don’t know how well overlooked your house is, but just possibly to fill the front of the available space may be an option, as then undesireables wont be able to hide if the attempt to break in as the door will be right at the front ?
Dont worry about the though of damp as long as you flash the roof propery to the house and make proper guttering /drainage to surface water drain.

crispedwheel
It’s a low wall with overhanging bushes on the top right. The wall along the bottom isn’t a boundary at all, don’t know why I wrote that there. It’s a retaining wall at the bottom of a steep grass (erm weed) banking.

Yes, we have patio doors, but we don’t want to be bringing garden waste and bikes through the house as the only way.

Blow the budget and build it completely up to the house and knock a new door through from the house. Fit some roof lights for natural light (with bars for security) and install a shower room for when you get back from your ride but make it big enough to shower your bike too.

Don’t forget to budget for decent security – get as much steel in the doors as possible and fit an alarm that goes off inside your house with no visible wires that can be cut.

It’s worth pointing out that the awkward space where the top yellow arrow is in the top picture, is overlooked by the front of our neighbour’s house so isn’t too much of a security worry.

Thanks for the ideas so far people!

My feeling is that a custom build of the most recent image, would be tough for £1000 given current timber prices – what are your thoughts on that?

A bit slow from me, but yes thats what I was thinking of. You could extend the roof over the alley like you often see with stables, but it would just make the alley even darker.

Roof will be interesting…decide where you want the most height if you are going to hang bikes vertically from one of the walls.

Make it two storey, with a flat sunlounger type roof garden on top, and with battlements along the side, and a firemans pole dropping to an inset trampoline by the back door.

Thanks crikey 🙂
We’ve already got a flying fox (zip line) and rope ladder. Will that do?

Anyone else have thoughts?
I’m struggling to see how I can build it on budget – anybody got any tips for that?

fyi when i built a shed the last year it was about 1/3rd of the price of a built unit i could make wobble by leaning on it to buy the wood and build a much better quality shed (thicker shiplap and structural woodwork)

but i was able to borrow from my dad a chop saw and nail gun which made it easy and done it in a day.Could be done with a handsaw and hammer and nails cheaply though but it would take time

Just been speaking to a builder – he reckons that the only reason speccing your own timber seems expensive compared to off-the-shelf sheds, is that it’s impossible to buy timber that is comparably crap.
Good to know.

go to a good local sawmill(ask your builder mate there) – not the bnq/merchants

i was quoted 1200 quid for a built unit and got all the wood needed for 350 quid !

I’ve heard a good method is to use concrete fence posts to created the basic structure, this avoids any wobble in the longer walls and means you can build each panel ‘prefab’ and just slot them in. They don’t need to slot into the fence groove, you can make them so the inner and outer skin cover half the fence post to meet with the next panel, then cover the join with a vertical strip of wood.

Do you mean sink the concrete posts into concrete footings?

is that it’s impossible to buy timber that is comparably crap

Totally agreed, I purchased one of those cheap sheds from a place similar to crap shedscouldn’t believe just how crap it was, ended up attempting to stiffen it up with 2 x 2 then the timbers dried out and there were huge gaps in the ship lap then winter came and the timbers expanded to the point the ship lap was popping open and splitting then it got set free with some petrol and a match, thinking back it was actually comical how poorly constructed it was.

I saw it on a website, had a quick look but not been able to find it.

Yeh he used concrete posts into footings, then built panels and offered them up to the posts, then on the inside he added the inner skin, sandwiching the post and making everything solid. Obviously you can set the posts at different distances apart if required and make the panels to fit. You would have to set the posts quite accurately though.

He was building a wooden garage rather than a shed. It might be the worst idea in the world, but it made sense at the time 🙂

Thanks scotsman for confirming the quality of timber.
I was on a shed site that had 5 different levels of quality. (http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk)
I looked at the ‘top of the range’ one and it was still only 11mm thick cladding! with 1.2mm glass! I daredn’t look at the lower spec ones.

spooky_b329
I’ll have a look around on the web for that technique – although I think I’m happier working with timber.