Nothing gives homeowners more joy than building their own sheds with their own designs and craft in their own gardens and lawns. Apart from satiating the creative palate, designing one’s own shed also saves money.

Sheds can be easily built using the shed kits that are widely available. These shed kits include all the frames, siding boards, doors, windows and other fixtures that go into building the shed. They are also available in all three material varieties that are commonly used to make sheds, including wood, poly vinyl carbonate, and metal. Building a shed from a shed kit gives a person some creative liberty and the satisfaction that a self-accomplished job provides.

If one is enthusiastic enough, then a shed can be built right from scratch. Shed building only requires basic carpentry skills coupled with a sense of geometry. Simple tools like hammers, saws, screwdrivers, levels, drills are required with material such as wood for siding, shingles for the roof and doors and windows. But the most important input for building a shed is time and patience.

The preliminary step for shed building is marking the site. Care should be taken that a perfect square (or rectangle) is outlined on the ground. This can be checked by measuring the diagonals and verifying if they are equal in length. Sheds don’t need very strong foundations; a simple layer of concrete would do. But if the ground is prone to be frozen in winter, then the concrete foundation must be thinner. Also, there must be some attachment of the shed with the ground, or else a gust of heavy wind might just knock the shed down.

Next step is the erection of the framework. The framework must be accurate and carefully checked for horizontality and verticality. Readymade frames are available that can be fixed with screws. Once the framework is in place, the siding boards are placed. The most demanding aspect of shed building is erecting a perfect perpendicularly aligned frame. Doors and windows are erected at desired places and are fixed with hinges and screws. The final step is the attaching of the roof. A flat or a sloping roof is easier to attach than a shingled roof.

Sheds can be then painted in chosen colors to complete their look. For a touch of aesthetics, there are several creepers and trellises that may be grown on the walls and windows. Once a shed is built, the decoration and external appearance of the shed can be done in various creative ways.

Building a shed on one’s own not only saves money, but also gives creative satisfaction. Joseph Truini has written a detailed book on the subject called “Build Like a Pro: Building a Shed” that contains detailed information on shed building.