If you've been around LVC for very long then you probably know that last August I had my single car garage remodeled and made one end into a much-needed workshop/girl shop!
The remaining portion of the garage holds all my holiday decor and my car with not much room to spare!
In my backyard, I have a tiny little 4' x 6' Keter garden storage shed but it isn't nearly big enough for all my lawn tools, leaf blowers, weed eaters, weed killer, and the lawnmower. You can see when I first got this little shed back in 2016 here: Organizing a Garden Shed. I had it set up really cute and organized but since then I have gathered more tools and there just isn't enough room in it for everything.
Sooo... I wanted a larger shed to store all the things you acquire as a homeowner. I looked into buying one of those sheds that they will come and set up in your yard for you but that would be about $5k and then there was the issue with easements, etc.
I had a weird little shed-like structure (it was a former wood storage area) already in my yard that I thought I could transform into a shed so I asked my dad what he thought... yep! We could do it he said! You can see what this former wood storage area looked like when I first moved in and how we moved it to another location in the yard here: The Great Pergola Move. Then how I transformed it so it looked a little more like a shed here: Backyard Pergola Fix-Up. It actually looked more like a bus stop though 😂
I'm glad we were able to transform it into a shed though because truth be told, it was pretty useless before... I mean, who needs a bus stop in their backyard?!... and the alternative was dismantling it to make room for a shed!
So, let me show you how we made it into my new backyard shed!
Building a Backyard Shed - Former Wood Storage Area
Here is what we started with and the first task was to move it again to straighten it up and make it sit square with the fence.
We moved it the same way we did before... with a car jack and grape poles. Check out the post above to see how slick this works!
Basically, we lift it with the car jack...
... so that we can slide the grape poles underneath...
... then we just roll it on the grape poles to position it where we need it!!😄
Then we put the corner blocks back into place and make sure it's level!
Easy peasy!!
So now that we had it positioned where I wanted it with enough room to walk around it if I needed to it was time to start adding onto it!
We started with the floor.
I think this was the most time-consuming part of the whole build because you have to make sure everything is square and level. Even with all the measuring, and checking with the level and a square, we
still didn't get it completely perfect! But good enough for this project 😉
We are using the corrugated plastic for the roof, more on that later!
Once we had the floor done, we moved on to building the walls.
We built them on the ground and then put them up.
You can see we also started the roof here. We angled it off the existing structure roof.
We had a rainstorm so we used the plastic roof sheeting to cover our new floor! 😲
But we eventually got the sheeting up where it belongs on the roof! We chose this for roofing because there is no electricity out here and then we didn't have to mess with trying to buy and put in windows. I'll get lots of natural light this way!
It's kind of hard to tell but we used some regular roofing shingles that were up in the rafters in the garage to cover the seam from where the new roof meets the old roof. It worked perfectly!
We added some shelves in. We did this before adding the siding to make it easier!
We used scraps of 2x6 boards to make them.
Then we started siding it!
The angled roof pieces were a little more challenging but we got it! We did use the siding with the lines going in different directions because we were trying to save money as much as possible so we used every last bit of siding practically! It turned out good I think, you'll see when you see it painted 😉
Since there were some pretty sizeable gaps on the old, existing structure portion we recycled a bunch of fence boards I had to cover that.
We also used them to cover the gaps that you could see on the inside.
We also covered the old floor with some material we got for free to cover those gaps.
Now we needed a door! I decided I liked the look of double doors and that would provide plenty of room to get my lawnmower in and out.
We used the same corrugated plastic as we used on the roof except in white.
We used recycled fence boards to add the trim to my new shed.
Then it was time to paint!!
I chose a darker grey called Carbon Copy from Behr's Marquee line of paint.
I sanded the trim to get all the old, loose paint off and painted it a creamy white Atlantis Pearl by Behr.
And here is my new shed!!
It's definitely not perfect and I have a new respect for contractors, they make it look so easy!
But considering that we started with a weird little structure that wasn't level by itself, I think we did pretty good!
Here are some interior shots... I'm really diggin' the roof! Its unique and unexpected (and very inexpensive!!)
I will admit, it is pretty hot out there since this roofing choice essentially makes it into a greenhouse! But it's not like I'm hanging out in the shed (had it been a she shed, I wouldn't have chosen this for a roof).
I still have to get all my stuff moved in and organized.
I used pool noodles to add some padding to the parts that hang down low, I can't tell you how many times my dad and I smaked our heads when we were building this!
I am really pleased with how my new little shed turned out... imperfections and all! We used lots of recycled materials and for under $500 compared to about $5k... I'm HAPPY!!
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