I don’t have any pics but when I was 17 years old I was given a task to build a shed for my mother, she lives in the hills, deep woods, her back yard is small so I decided to build the shed on a very unlevel almost run off section of the yard, boarder of the woods.
I came across a plastic shed on CL for $500. The Winchester by Royal Outdoor Products, it’s a 8ft wide by 10ft long shed, Lowe’s sold an extension kit that was like $700 or something to make it 8x15ft and my mom wanted it so it was ordered.
I borrowed a one man auger, dug 3ft holes, put two shovels of gravel down each hole, dumped 2-3 shovels of Quick Crete down each hole, slammed 4x4 posts down it to compact the material in the hole, plumbed the 4x4s best I could with 2x4s screwed into two sides until they were perfectly strait vertically and as horizontally as possible, filled the holes with Quick Crete until they mushroomed at the top. I think I poked a stick or something in there to work out air bubbles.
I put a 2x12x16 horizontally up on both sides of the 4x4 with screws, made them level, drilled threw the 2x12 then 4x4 and 2x12 on the back side and pounded 2 bolts with washers and the nuts with plastic that don’t back out on each 4x4. 4x4s sandwiched with two 2x12 face boards if that makes sense.
From there I built it like a deck, 2x8 floor Joyce hung with Joyce hangers 12in apart because the shed would store quad, lawn mower and a lot of heavy stuff.
I then cut the 4x4s off to make a flush deck, laid #1 decking down over all that and 1/4in plywood inside the building (after it was finished) for a smoother floor.
After the deck part was built the tallest part was over 3ft off the ground, lowest was prob 7 inches because how unlevel the ground was, the ramp I made out of railroad ties only because mom had extras laying around. I lag bolted a 4x4 to the face of the 2x12, notched the RR ties with a chainsaw, dug out the lower parts and placed blocks down in the ground to both level the ramp and so the RR ties weren’t sitting on dirt, made the deck out of 2x6s spaced 1in apart for grip and drainage, I just piled creek gravel at the bottom of the ramp to cover the RR ties.
On the deck part I started assembling the shed, it’s all plastic with nice heavy steel doors.
I’m 29 now, I put a level on the floor of that shed and it hasn’t settled one bit, perfectly flat floor, it’s up high so it won’t ever flood and it helps keep it dry in the humid conditions down there.
As far as electric, I drilled a hole in the floor near the front right corner, ran an extension cord from the house that plugs into a surge protector mounted vertically near the door, (foamed the hole so mice wouldn’t get in around the cord) I also hung a single fluorescent light fixture in the middle of the building which plugs into the surge protector and I used natural white light bulbs which had been more than enough light to shine the whole shed up. I walk into a dark shed, see a glowing switch, flip that which turns on the surge protector and lights come on.
On the front left side of the shed is a toolbox, past that is a rail system I found at sears, like a Godzilla version of peg board but only one rail and brackets for different things that ride the rail, there all the hand tools, hoses and stuff like that is hung, on the back wall in the center I bought one of those heavy plastic shelves for more storage, then a lawn mower, log splitter and quad fits in the rest of the space.
It’s worked out very well, under the shed deck we laid down pallets and put stuff under there as well like wheel barrow, ladders etc.
All in all it wasn’t the cheapest build out there but at 17 with minimal carpentry skills, just common sense and a eye for detail I was able to build a very nice little building stuffed on the side of a pretty steep hill in the deep woods with minimal tools, it’s still there and doesn’t look like it’s aged a bit other than some moss growing on the deck and roof. I wanted to make sure it would last and it’s done well in almost 10 years.
I think all the tools I had was a corded drill, mini square, 8in torpedo level, cheep corded circular saw and a chainsaw. Had to buy some 12-18in drill bits to make it threw 10in or so of wood and that was about it. No fabrication needed on the shed, I just used a 6ft ladder, used a long strait 2x4 with the torpedo level to make sure all the floor joyces were level etc. turned out great.
All the lumber was hauled from Lowe’s in a 6.5ft bed lmao, no trailer, i had 6 2x12x16 boards in there at one time, 40 mins one way. No lumber was hurt and I had a few flags back there lol.
