Sheds: The Do-It-Yourself Guide for Backyard Builders - Softcover

Stiles, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1552092925 ISBN 13: 9781552092927

Publisher: Firefly Books, 1998

Synopsis

Shed the illusion that the building in you're your in which tools and backyard equipment are stored must be, by definition, a boring and ugly necessity. The revised and expanded edition of Sheds contains absolutely everything you need to know to design, build and enjoy the ultimate backyard shed.

Award-winning designer David Stiles helps you think through the issues involved in shed design, such as use, cost, placement and "degree of difficulty." Following a chapter on construction basics, he guides you through each step of building a simple 8 x 10-foot shed -- from foundation to cupola and everything in between. This core chapter includes a material list, step-by-step illustrated instructions and a daily labor schedule, as well as new information on timber framing and moving your shed to a different location.

The book then presents several basic sheds, along with a number of more complex special-use sheds, including a pool shed, an Irish garden shed, even a Japanese boat shed. The all-new storage shed on posts allows you to situate your building of a slope.

Packed with detailed illustrations, plans, commonsense advice and an inspiring selection of color photographs, Sheds is like having a consultant at your side as you work. Whether you are an average amateur builder or an ambitious expert, this book has something for you.

About this title

About the Author

David Stiles is a designer'/builder and together, with his wife Jeanie, has authored fifteen books, including Sheds: The Do-It-Yourself Guide, Revised Edition (Firefly 1998), The Treehouse Book (which won the ALA Notable Children's Book Award), and Playhouses You Can Build (Firefly 1999). A graduate of the Pratt Institute and the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy, David is the winner of two awards from the New York Planning Commission for his designs for The Playground for All Children.

David and Jeanie's articles have appeared in several magazines and newspapers including House Beautiful, Better Homes and Gardens, Country Living, Home Mechanix, Rebecca's Gardens, and The New York Times. They have appeared on numerous television programs, including Lifetime Television Our Home and the Discovery Channel's Home Matters shows. They divide their time between New York City and East Hampton, N.Y. where they live in a barn which they renovated themselves.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

I have had a passion for building small structures since I was a kid. My first project, a clubhouse, ended in total failure because I did not know how to plan joints. Since then, I have built numerous treehouses, huts and forts. Now I have graduated to building sheds. Sheds, after all, are simply small houses, and many of the same principles apply to building both. If you plan on building your own house, you should definitely start by building a shed. This will not only test your building skills, but it will also give you a place to put your tools so they won't rust or get stolen. Even if you don't have such lofty homebuilding goals, a shed tailored to your needs and built by you and perhaps family and friends is a long-lasting, satisfying structure.

Let me dispel some common myths right away. Don't be misled by your neighbor saying, "You can build a shed in a weekend." All sheds take longer to build than you may think. To build anything right means you have to build it carefully; that takes time. How much time depends on your skills and the complexity of the shed you choose to build. A safe rule of thumb is to figure out the time required for each step and double it.

Another myth is that if you build the shed yourself, it won't cost anything. Not true. Even a doghouse will cost something in materials. Lumber is not cheap. You may be thinking of scavenging used lumber -- be aware that using old lumber of different sizes and strengths can lead to problems later on and may add unnecessary building time.

The shed you build yourself can be built better than any you may buy. You can build it to last a lifetime, you can build it to meet your exact requirements, you can build something you will be proud of. You can build a shed that will make you feel good every time you open the door and smell that unforgettable scent of real wood and see the shed that you put together with your own hands.

A recent study explored the success of home centers across the United States. The tool and hardware departments were getting a lot of business from "weekend carpenters." Most were business people who spent a large part of their lives in offices. The study found that what most of these people lacked in their lives was being able to have total control over a project and to feel the satisfaction that resulted from beginning the project and carrying it to completion themselves. Building a shed provides you with just that.

Building a shed is a big project and an activity that you should take pleasure in doing. In order to avoid mistakes and the frustration of trying to meet a deadline, allow plenty of time for completion. Make it an open-ended project that you can enjoy.

Any homeowner, especially those without a garage or basement, will be amazed what a difference a shed makes to their property. Not enough room for storage is one of homeowners' top complaints, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Once you have completed a shed, you may find that your awareness of sheds has been elevated. As you drive through the countryside, your eye will unavoidably be drawn to people's yards, and you may quite naturally begin appraising the success or failure of other sheds. You may even feel inclined toward replacing that silver-framed photo of your trusting family dog with a color photo of your shed!

Sheds is different from the few other existing shed books or shed chapters in more general books, because it helps you get started thinking through what you want in your shed and then helps you design a shed to fit your needs. I begin with a compendium of construction techniques -- it helps to get familiar with these at the design stage and to refer to them again during actual building. The book continues with simple step-by-step, illustrated instructions for building a basic 8 x 10 shed from the bottom up. A section on a few more basic sheds is followed by a sampling of more complex special-use sheds whose designs come from hand-crafted outbuildings all over the world. I have included plans for all the sheds described in the book. I have purposely chosen designs with very different construction techniques and architectural features so that you can actually combine elements from various designs to create your custom-made shed. Perhaps you want to include the pole framing of the Japanese Boat Shed in your work shed along with the window of the Basic 8 x 10 Shed. The possibilities are endless. Finally, for the confident craftsperson and the dreamer there is a section of inspirational drawings and color photographs -- ideas to incorporate and ideas to build on.

Sheds is written for creative, hands-on homeowners with do-it-yourself experience in weekend projects and basic home repair. You should have at least a few building and repair projects under your tool belt, be ready to tackle medium-sized, challenging projects and be willing to stretch your carpentry skills for worthwhile accomplishments.

About this edition

• Publisher: Firefly Books
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1552092925
• ISBN 13: 9781552092927
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176