Setting Footings & Floor Systems:

This is video sample number 1 of 6 from the DoItYourselBuilder.com project titled "How the Pros Build a Shed". We'll show you step by step how to complete each stage of this project. Remember, these are just short video samples from the full project titled "How the Pros Build a Shed", to check out the entire video project, go to DoItYourselBuilder.com.

Today we're building an 8x10 shed. In order to start a project like this, you need to make sure you have a level surface, either a level pad, or concrete, whatever you might be putting it on. Today we're putting it on blocks, so I have these blocks here. These are made of concrete, you can buy them at Lowe's or any hardware or landscaping place. These here we just lay down flat and put the floor system on top of them.

Do the best you can to get them as all level as you can. It's impossible later to try and level it, without having to shim it. I would also suggest that you put some type of drain rock under it so that water won't build up, which is what we're doing here.

You notice we're using pressure treated wood too, that'll help keep it from rotting. Here I've cut 2x6's, or I'm cutting 2x6's to span across as our floor joists. These were 8 feet, and we're cutting of 3 inches because their's an inch and a half 2x6 on each side as our ledgers, and we want it to be 8 feet, so you need to subtract those 3 inches so it'll be a total of eight feet. Here I'm measuring this out 16 inch on center for the floor joists, and what you'll do is you'll grab the end and you'll go 16 3/4 and back and mark an X, and once you've done that make it 16 inch on center all the way across and transfer your lines. And what we're using is 2x6 joist hangers, and you can get them at any hardware store, along with the Teco nails, and they're basically a nail that's designed to install the brackets. One way to put these on that's a little easier here is you cut yourself a little chunck of 2x6 and put it inside the bracket and hold it tight onto it and then hold it up flush with the top of the 2x6 and that will give you kindn of a spacer. But you don't have to do that, just installing them like this it works.

You're going to want to use either a 3/4 or 7/8 plywood on this. Here were using Oregon Strand Board, which is a decking material here. It's T&G, meaning it has a Tongue and a Groove. The Tongue and Groove runs on the 8 foot side. You'll install it the opposite direction of your floor joists, cut them to fit. When you put your first sheet on you're just to want to square it up with the outside edge of your floor system. Adjust your floor so it squares and your sheet will automatically do that for you. Then just cut your sheets and put them in.

 

This has just been a short sample taken from the DoItYourselfBuilder.com project titled "How the Pros Build a Shed". To purchase the full video, as well as the "Materials and Instructions" list, click here.

 

 

Framing Walls:

This is video sample number 2 of 6 from the DoItYourselBuilder.com project titled "How the Pros Build a Shed". We'll show you step by step how to complete each stage of this project. Remember, these are just short video samples from the full project titled "How the Pros Build a Shed", to check out the entire video project, go to DoItYourselBuilder.com.

We've got these four plates together, these are front and back. They're cut to the length of the wall. You want to make sure they're cut perfectly flat on both sides. We have top, bottom, top, bottom, so we've got both ends here. You've got the side wall coming in, so you're going to need to put a 2x4 on the end. In this case what we'll do is we'll mark the ends with an "X", showing that the stud goes there. Then 16 inch on center, so you'll go 16 and 3/4 and then back. Once you do that, you make a mark and then you "X" them all. You want to do all these together, all evened up nice and tight so that when you slide them apart the studs will be exactly lined up. You just continue to do that all the way down.

So now we have both walls layed out, and when you have one set done, you lay these on your end, line them up and get it where you want it.

I want to show you how to do a splice in a top and bottom plate. When you get your measurement here, measure out so that it's right dead center on the joint on a piece of siding. If you use T1-11 or OSB you want to get it right on the joint. So I've cut this one to 8 feet off the outside of the plate down there, and I've cut this to fit right in there. You want to make sure these are lined up with your floor system below, and you want to make sure everything is lined up outside all the way around. You can use your square and kind of push it out. When you get done, your wall plate is going to land right together right here, and your stud is going to come down and hit right on that and you'll put four nails on it and it'll be right on the joint. You're 16" on center layout is right here, and your other one is right here. Then you'll go through it and transfer these down.

Once you stand the wall, just line up the bottom plate, your wall plate even with the outside floor system 2x6 below. You can use a level or a straight edge, and then just nail it down. So because our door is taller than our walls, we're going to have to put the top plate in and then leave the trimmers out, and then we'll cut it once it's up there, and I'll show you here in a little bit how to do that. So I'm nailing on the king studs in this position here, and I'm going to leave the trimmers out.

It's perfectly fine to hand nail this off with 16's. If you don't have an air gun, don't bother going out and buying one just to frame this little garage, you can nail the whole thing off with hand nails.

This has just been a short sample taken from the DoItYourselfBuilder.com project titled "How the Pros Build a Shed". To purchase the full video, as well as the "Materials and Instructions" list, click here.

 

 

Installing Siding:

This is video sample number 3 of 6 from the DoItYourselBuilder.com project titled "How the Pros Build a Shed". We'll show you step by step how to complete each stage of this project. Remember, these are just short video samples from the full project titled "How the Pros Build a Shed", to check out the entire video project, go to DoItYourselBuilder.com.

Now we're going to cut the siding, so what you need to do is measure from the bottom of the floor system all the way to the top. Right now it's 85 1/2", so what we're going to do is cut all of our sheets 85 1/2", except for the two gable ends, this entrance and the back. We're going to do both sides 85 1/2" and they're going to go flush up to the top. So I've got T1-11 here, it's a Warehouser product. I'm going to make a mark at 85 1/2" here.

We're installing the siding on this, and the overlap on these needs to be centered with the stud. Get a couple nails in here and check your end. What we'll do is square this up a little bit by tweaking this and pulling it down so we can kind of get an idea of where it's supposed to be. It's going to overhang a little bit, I'm overhanging 1/4", so set that 1/4" all the way down here. It's really important that you get that first sheet on there square because this is going to lock your wall in place, basically sheer it up.

Here we're putting up T1-11 4x8 sheets. You can buy these in 9 foot sheets but it's a little more expensive so we're just going to do a seem up there. So when you do this, put them in exactly where you want them and then tack them in place, and then make a mark on the backside and then pull it down and cut them. It's alot easier to do this this way, because if you accidentally cut one of these sheets wrong, then you'll have to put a bunch of trim around it to cover it or you'll spend about $30 a sheet. You could really throw some money away cutting these sheets, so just take your time, get them exactly the way you want them, mark them, and then install them. Now here we're going to just measure over and pick up the edge of the door and we'll cut this out after we've got it all nailed off. Here we're using 8d galvanized ring shank nails in the gun. You can use galvanized hand nails if you want but it's alot harder to nail in.

This has just been a short sample taken from the DoItYourselfBuilder.com project titled "How the Pros Build a Shed". To purchase the full video, as well as the "Materials and Instructions" list, click here.

 

 

Framing The Roof:

This is video sample number 4 of 6 from the DoItYourselBuilder.com project titled "How the Pros Build a Shed". We'll show you step by step how to complete each stage of this project. Remember, these are just short video samples from the full project titled "How the Pros Build a Shed", to check out the entire video project, go to DoItYourselBuilder.com.

Here we're going to be figuring out what the minimum pitch of this roof is. So I'm going to lay this up here, it's touching the plate on the right, and then it's touching right above this door, so what we want to do is figure out what pitch it is. You put a level on here, and then you want to get it perfectly level and draw a line. Once you've done that, you take your little speed square, we put it right on here, right on the line, and you can see right here that we're right above the 4 and 12, so if we wanted to switch it to a 4 and 12 and raise it up a little bit, that'd be what we want.

Once you have your mark, then you want to put your square on here, and there's a pivot point right here on the square, you can see here it says "Pivot point", we're using the backside of it. So you line that up right with your mark, and then you're going to want to swing your square until it's right on the 4 and 12 on the common side. You can put it on whatever pitch you want, here we have 1 through 30. Once you do that, then you mark the line down, that gives you the angle of the roof, you cut that, and then once you lay your rafters up there then that's exactly the pitch you'll have. You want to cut them all that way.

In order to get thelength of the ridge, you're going to measure the length of the building, they'll be the same, and then you're going to need to cut two blocks for both ends. In order to do this take your rafter and hold it up into position like you did when we measured and cut them. Hold it exactly where you want it and measure from the edge of your rafter down and then your going to have to compensate for the thickness of the two, because your ridges are 2x6 and your rafters are 2x4. So just measure them and then cut the different amout. Also on one end here we have our door header, so that blocks going to be shorter than the other side. And then install that level across there.

Now, I've cut this block and now I'm screwing it in. A lot of times with these small blocks if you don't use screws then they're going to split it out. Get yourself some deck screws.

You can see at this end the layout came together so it will be to close together for 24". You can see here I made a mark so I scratched it out good so you wouldn't accidentally put one against it so you can kind of tell there what's going on. It goes all the way across, and you want to do that to both sides.

Once your ridge is in, then you are going to want to install all your rafters. You can put them right on your line, on the X side. And we've already lined out the plate, so line those up with your X's on both sides, the ridge and the plate. You're going to put two nails in the backside through the ridge, into your rafter. You want to do this throughout the whole roof, until you've got them all layed out.

Now continue to nail those off, put two nails in each one. Then down on the plate you're not going to be able to nail it diagonally, you just can't get enough of a bite into the top-plate. Normal houses we'll use 2x6's and they'll be cut out and dropped down on the plate and you'll have alot more room to get nails in there, but in this application, to make it easier, we're just going to lay the 2x4's on top of the top-plate. We're going to install a bracket, put in with Teco nails. You can get these brackets at any hardware store, they're a Simpson® bracket, or you can get different types of brackets, it doesn't really matter, just something so that you can nail these 2x4 rafters in place. You're going to put them on the bottom. Nail them in. It basically holds these in place from pulling up, and it also keeps them from twisting.

Installing Bird-Blocks:

We're going to be installing the bird blocks around the outside edge. They're basically 22 1/2" long and they're made of 2x4's. You want to get yourself some nice ones because they're going to be exposed. Don't grab the one that's been floating around in the mud, or been stepped on. You're going to install them so that they're right even with the edge of the plate, and tight down on the siding.

As you start the roof sheeting we're going to make a mark here at six inches so we can overhang this our six inches all the way around. It's really important that this sheet gets on here nice and square and straight, because this will dictate everything else on the roof. If you get this one off kilter, as you work your way up the roof and onto the other side, it'll get worse, and pretty soon you'll realise that the first one you put in was wrong, so be very careful when you're installing your first one.

You can see here the nail pattern we were doing, and we alternating them, nailing on both sides, 6-8 inches.

This has just been a short sample taken from the DoItYourselfBuilder.com project titled "How the Pros Build a Shed". To purchase the full video, as well as the "Materials and Instructions" list, click here.

 

 

Installing The Door:

This is video sample number 5 of 6 from the DoItYourselBuilder.com project titled "How the Pros Build a Shed". We'll show you step by step how to complete each stage of this project. Remember, these are just short video samples from the full project titled "How the Pros Build a Shed", to check out the entire video project, go to DoItYourselBuilder.com.

We're going to be showing you here how to put a door in. This is just a standard steel door that you buy down at Lowe's or Home Depot. It has a brick mold on the front of it, it's a white primered, and has a aluminum threshold. It's bored for both deadbolt and lock. First you want to strip all the material off the outside, blocks off the bottoms and the sides. Pound down any staples you might have sticking out and then remove any screws that might be holding the door closed, or any brochures or any other information.

You've got to prep the hole, just dust the sawdust off from cutting the door way out, and then we're going to take a bead of caulk and put it across the bottom of the door. This is to seal the threshold to the floor. This is just standard caulking, nothing fancy, paintable caulk, in-expensive. We'd already checked to make sure the door fit, so we're just sliding it right in there. Once you slip the door in, remember it can fall out, so keep your hand on it or keep the door open.

To mount this, you're going to want to use screws, use 3 1/2" gold screws. You're going to pull out the little screws they have in the hinge, just one of them in each hinge, and you're going to replace it with a 3 1/2" screw. On the swing side of the door, where the hinges are, you're going to want to lift that up an 1/8" by shoving a shim on the bottom and then inserting the 3 1/2" screw all the way in, nice and snug. You're going to continue and pull one screw out of each hinge and replace it with a 3 1/2" screw, screwing it tight against the jam side of the door. Periodically check it and make sure the door has enough reveal around the inside to be able to adjust it, and that's why we lift the door up a little bit, in order to get that adjustment. So on the striker side, when the door shuts, you'll have enough room to adjust that side up and down. It also stops the threshold from crowning.

You can see here how there's about a 1/4" reveal all the way around the door. Then once you get the door in place you're going to want to adjust the jam so that the door's in square, so just use some shims, and then really gently just shove them in so they're snug. Do not push them in to tight or you'll push the jam over and the door reveal will be different.

So he're you can either pre-drill a hole or just shove a 3 1/2" screw through the shim and into the stud. Meanwhile you're going to be checking the reveal all the way around, adjusting in and out, and up and down as you go. And remember: when you screw this in it's going to compress the shims and everything else. So it's OK to have a little smaller reveal, but once you put the screw in then it will be tightened up.

Putting the threshold support in, this is just a 2x4 all the way across. You want to make sure you put these in because if you walk on the edge of the threshold then it'll bend it. It's always nice to pre-primer these, but we did not do that, because if anything's going to rot out, this is going to rot out, because water likes to collect on that edge. You're going to want to come back and caulk this in around the sides, primer it, and get it covered with paint. Again: these are 3 1/2" screws we're using, the same ones we used in the hinges.

This has just been a short sample taken from the DoItYourselfBuilder.com project titled "How the Pros Build a Shed". To purchase the full video, as well as the "Materials and Instructions" list, click here.