GeoTracker90
Active member
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2007
- Messages
- 36
Well last fall (2009) we bought a place that included a 12' x 16' shed with full 8' walls. 
The trick is to turn this into a work place that has some storage as well without letting the storage take everything over.
The first order of business was correcting the electrical service to the shed. The previous owners had a 50' extension cord plugged into the side of the house and ran it around to the shed. To tie into the shed it was spliced into some Romex house wiring. The worst part was that to accomplish the splice they just twisted the wires together and wrapped them with black tape and left it sitting on top of the ground outside the shed!
Funny thing about all of this was that the electrical distribution post sits about 10' - 12' away from the shed and had an available 30 amp 220 volt breaker. All it took was an afternoon to trench over, install some conduit and pull the wire to a new 6 breaker load box that I installed in the shed. I've now wired the shed with one circuit for the lights, two circuits for 110 volt outlets, and one circuit of 220 volts (20 amp) that I'll use for my welder.
You'll notice that in the picture above there is a window. This doesn't seem like much, but originally the shed had no windows and thus no ventilation either. It now has two windows for a total investment of $15. I like that!
As I've been working on the inside (I now have three of the walls insulated and sheathed) I set up a small temporary workbench. This area will end up with a permanent work bench that is 24" deep and 48" wide with an additional 3' long, 18" deep bench top running down the wall to the left. And, at the end of that bench top I'll have a vertical cabinet with cubby holes for storing my power tools.
The area above the workbench will have wall mount cabinets and an inexpensive dvd player / home theater unit because the south wall is going to be outfitted with a permanent movie screen. Can't wait to have a bunch of guys over and watch "Corner Gas" or "The World's Fastest Indian" or any of the other movies in my garage DVD collection.
Second to last photo for now: the outside of the shed. It doesn't look like much but the plan is to round up some more license plates and complete the rest of the bottom ofthe shed with them, and then above that install wood siding.
I'm getting quite excited to get the inside finished off so that I can start getting things put away in their place, but mostly I want to get the inside completed so that I can have it ready for a winter project with my two boys. We plan on building some custom bicycles and will even build a frame jig to help us out with it. Here is a picture I saved off of the internet to use as inspiration.
Well that's all I have for the moment. I'll try to remember to update this as I make progress, but it will probably be a little slow going as I have to fit the shed project in whenever I have a few spare moments here and there. Wish me luck!!
Mike
The trick is to turn this into a work place that has some storage as well without letting the storage take everything over.The first order of business was correcting the electrical service to the shed. The previous owners had a 50' extension cord plugged into the side of the house and ran it around to the shed. To tie into the shed it was spliced into some Romex house wiring. The worst part was that to accomplish the splice they just twisted the wires together and wrapped them with black tape and left it sitting on top of the ground outside the shed!
Funny thing about all of this was that the electrical distribution post sits about 10' - 12' away from the shed and had an available 30 amp 220 volt breaker. All it took was an afternoon to trench over, install some conduit and pull the wire to a new 6 breaker load box that I installed in the shed. I've now wired the shed with one circuit for the lights, two circuits for 110 volt outlets, and one circuit of 220 volts (20 amp) that I'll use for my welder.
You'll notice that in the picture above there is a window. This doesn't seem like much, but originally the shed had no windows and thus no ventilation either. It now has two windows for a total investment of $15. I like that!
As I've been working on the inside (I now have three of the walls insulated and sheathed) I set up a small temporary workbench. This area will end up with a permanent work bench that is 24" deep and 48" wide with an additional 3' long, 18" deep bench top running down the wall to the left. And, at the end of that bench top I'll have a vertical cabinet with cubby holes for storing my power tools.
The area above the workbench will have wall mount cabinets and an inexpensive dvd player / home theater unit because the south wall is going to be outfitted with a permanent movie screen. Can't wait to have a bunch of guys over and watch "Corner Gas" or "The World's Fastest Indian" or any of the other movies in my garage DVD collection.
Second to last photo for now: the outside of the shed. It doesn't look like much but the plan is to round up some more license plates and complete the rest of the bottom ofthe shed with them, and then above that install wood siding.
I'm getting quite excited to get the inside finished off so that I can start getting things put away in their place, but mostly I want to get the inside completed so that I can have it ready for a winter project with my two boys. We plan on building some custom bicycles and will even build a frame jig to help us out with it. Here is a picture I saved off of the internet to use as inspiration.
Well that's all I have for the moment. I'll try to remember to update this as I make progress, but it will probably be a little slow going as I have to fit the shed project in whenever I have a few spare moments here and there. Wish me luck!!
Mike
