Below 265 SQ/FT Shed Storage Evolution

[DennisDoesEverything]

Back in the before-times (2019 and earlier) I was renting a house that had an 8x16 shed (aluminum over wood). When we moved in it was open to the elements as the door had blown off; I built a replacement door which I tried to paint white but ended up stippled.



I filled the shed when I bought out someone's hoard of 92-96 Honda Prelude parts, plus what I'd already hoarded from junkyard scores at the local Pull A Part.

 

[DennisDoesEverything]

Unfortunately the shed having never been maintained by the rental company or previous renters was leaking and the wood rotting. I eventually sought permission to tear it down.


And so all my stuff went to rented storage units. Not sure if this pic is coming or going, but it looked the same both ways. We're now up to 2020.



Of course I had an ulterior motive: I got permission to remove the old shed; I didn't mention what I planned to do with the space where it had been.

 

[DennisDoesEverything]

The new shed I built was 8x20 instead of 8x16, because why not build back bigger? (This will be a theme.)


Since it's hot as f--- in Oklahoma from May until it snows (and I sunburn easily) I pre-fabbed the walls in my garage and carried each section to the backyard, whole.


This was my first major carpentry project. Never one to half-*** anything; I whole-*** everything I jump into.


Well, I did half *** (or rather, screwed up) the gap for a ridge vent and had to cut it out with a circular saw.


Finishing the roof by moonlight (NOT all in one day, mind you).

 

[DennisDoesEverything]

The (using the term loosely) finished product. We're now up to Christmas 2020. Edit: forgot to mention, I reused the door I built for the old shed, which itself repurposed aluminum from the original door. This will be a theme.


And finally after a dozen pictures we get back to the ostensible point of this thread: storage solutions within the shed.


I bought 4 Husky 5' long by 2' deep metal shelving units, and repurposed the legs from a 72" worktable as a shelf (having previously used the table top for another project). The rack of red and blue small bins would later come to live in a nook in my new garage.

 

[DennisDoesEverything]

Still Christmas 2020; the neighbors' lights reflecting off the snow and fog I thought made for a cool pic.


One year after the shot that opens this thread.

 

[DennisDoesEverything]

We had no intention of moving or I would have never put so much effort into the shed, but the universe had other plans. Not a season later (Spring 2021) we had a golden opportunity to buy the house next door to my wife's mother's house. I'm happy we can do this for my wife and her mom, and now I don't have to get dressed for family events: I can just mosey over in pajamas and house shoes. Thanksgiving is far less stressful when you don't have to load the turkey in the car or worry about forgetting to bring something.

First I had to prepare the ground in our new backyard. The previous homeowner had had a playset and wood chips here.


Thankfully the property already came with one 10x14 (ish?) shed so I didn't have to rent temporary storage.


Visible in the previous picture are pieces of the shed I built. I wasn't about to leave the product of my hard work behind (when the rental property management didn't even know it existed) and not when the price of lumber was so high. However the houses in the neighborhood where I was previously renting were all just a hair too little clearance between them to tow an 8' wide shed through. It would take a helicopter or dirigible to get the shed out whole.

So I took the shed to pieces, starting with the roof.


There's video of this; if I upload it to YouTube, I'll link it here.


(By the way the reason I'm doing just a few images per post is I'm on mobile and, much as I appreciate being able to upload images directly, the post editor is a bit glitchy as well as hard to use on mobile.)

 

[FTWingRiders]

Wow. Didn’t see that coming… looking forward to more pics!

 

[Ford52PU]

Your thread tittle caught my attention I’m also a Dennis! I’ll follow along.

 

[DennisDoesEverything]

Just because I can't help but overcomplicate things, I widened the shed to 10x20 but reused the boards from the 8ft floor. And then doubled it up to 12" OC. You may rightly question what is gained by reusing a hundred board feet at the cost of an obscene amount of Strongtie brackets, but this was during the topsy-turvy 2021 economy when white pine was more valuable than metal. (And as we all know, one's own time is always the least valued factor of all...)


I spent a lot of sunsets outside working on that shed base.


I took up the extra 2' by converting the 8' gable roof to a 10' gambrel. Yes these are are the same rafters - or boards salvaged from them anyway. I made a fixture on the floor to mass produce gambrel arches.

 

[Just_Steve]

I'm in on this thread.

 

[DennisDoesEverything]

Truly if I'd known how much work this was going to be, I'd've left the 8x20 shed behind and built the next one from scratch. Still it was a milestone when the walls finally went (back) up. Christmas (again), 2021.


This is a good time to mention it was my wife who helped me carry the 8'Lx6'H wall sections from yard to yard on and off the trailer. They were significantly heavier with the OSB sheathing than when I framed the first shed.

My grand plan, revealed: the lower part of the gambrel roof is simultaneously a continuous row of transom windows.



View from inside. The extra sections leaning are the former 8' side walls, cut into pairs of now- barn doors. Note the new framing on previous picture; it's extra width and where the barn doors will attach.

 

[DrFeelGood]

Great thread so far. I keep going from one pic to the next by saying,"what are you going to do now?", oh, that's how you are solving that... "How about now?"... "oh, gambrel".
Can't wait for the next. Bravo! Double bravo because you are managing to do it all on mobil.

 

[DennisDoesEverything]

Great thread so far. I keep going from one pic to the next by saying,"what are you going to do now?", oh, that's how you are solving that... "How about now?"... "oh, gambrel".
Can't wait for the next. Bravo! Double bravo because you are managing to do it all on mobil.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement. I wasn't sure if this was only of interest to me, but I was inspired by the thread about the dealership worth of Lista cabinets to post my own story (which does involve a dealership worth of metal shelving, later).

 

[bakmopar]

Nice vision and execution.

 

[DennisDoesEverything]

February 2022; the weather turned before I could finish the roof. I had to cover it with a tarp.


It took me until September 2022 to finish the roof. I had to do it twice. If you've done part of a roof and it's already revealed itself not watertight, continuing with the hope it will work out by the end is not a winning strategy.

In fact the new roof is all of the polycarbonate panels that had been on the walls of the 8x20 incarnation, laid on top of the original roof panels. Actually first I ripped off all of them, then I laid a 1,2;3,4 pattern of panels, double thick, to overlap old screw holes and other potential sources of leaks. We do get baseball size hail in this part of Oklahoma, so I tell myself it's at least protection against that.

In place of polycarbonate over the walls I used prepainted panels on top of the OSB because I hate painting. The giant shop fan is homemade, but it might require its own thread.

 

[DrFeelGood]

Holy mother of god!!!
I was thinking about increased shop ventilation when welding but there is no shielding gas tank big enough that could handle the flow that thing could generate.
Have a work shop with your fan... LOL

 

[DennisDoesEverything]

As I was saying...


Anyway here is the "now draw the rest of the f'ing owl" step. Loft doors, barn doors, and see that middle door? It's the same door from the other shed, with the same aluminum lining the inside from the old old shed door that had blown away in a storm.

In the previous picture you can see a bit of blue sheet metal panels. I think I posted in another topic about dealing with cat pee smell on some metal shelving units I'd bought; this is them. I hung them outside to get purifying sun and rain.

They ended up hanging outside longer than I intended because I had homeowner issues to take care of all summer 2023, including a fence that (say it with me) blew over in a storm. This is Moore. (We got a famous tornado in May 2013.)

 

[DennisDoesEverything]

Holy mother of god!!!
I was thinking about increased shop ventilation when welding but there is no tank big enough that could handle the flow that thing could generate.
Have a work shop with your fan... LOL

Thanks for the enthusiasm! Much like the shed and carpentry, the fan was my first welding project larger than a couple table legs.

 

[Just_Steve]

At the end of this thread you need to add the fan details.

 

[DennisDoesEverything]

At the end of this thread you need to add the fan details.

Actually, how about now? The truth is: I might have to go take some additional pictures to conclude the plotline I started this thread for, but I have the fan pictures now.

The fan, as most of my projects, started with a pile of junk I should really throw away and the observation that unrelated item A kinda fits inside unlikely part B.

I had extra hub motors after an abandoned project to build a multi wheel drive ebike, and I had salvage ceiling fan parts from helping a local dance studio renovate in return for private salsa lessons. The original 300W AC motor had died; the nominal 500W (realistically 1500W) BLDC ebike motors should be... interesting... in this application.

At the time I had just met someone (now a good friend) at a Pull a Part when we both were going for the same Prelude part. It was a bracket for the parking brake cables; I believe I let him get it. He had talked about and shown me a picture of his having built a miniature horse carriage for (if I recall) his niece using a tube roller to make fanciful curves. I called him up and he graciously loaned me his tube roller, so graciously in fact I can't get him to pick the damn thing back up.


With the tube roller I was able to make the curves I needed for the cage to hold the fan blades, which are 6' in diameter. On the advice of the guy at Metal Supermarkets (my friend intended to submit his carriage to their featured projects gallery), I went with 3/4 hot rolled in I forget the thickness.



And I'm afraid that's all the time we have today folks; it's time for bed. More to come tomorrow.

 

[DennisDoesEverything]

This might make the ebike motor in fan hub picture above make more sense. It's an interesting design, having a cast hub for the blades instead of bolting them directly to the motor as most ceiling fans do. It's sort of like a 3 piece wheel.

 

[rocco]

With that horde of Prelude parts I was hoping to see a 92-95 Prelude! Nice shed though, love to see the organizing.

 

[DennisDoesEverything]

I uploaded this video of the original spin up test. (I'll post more build pictures later but wanted to add this real quick.)
Giant Fan Spin Up (YouTube)

 

[Geoff289]

So really your shed is secretly a wind tunnel?

 

[DrFeelGood]

I would love to have someone forget a tubing bender at my place... Just sayin'

 

[PugetDude]

Interesting thread....

 

[captain14]

I’m going to follow. I never saw this thread when you first started it.