- Plan your shed base
You must have a sturdy base for your shed, otherwise the frame won’t stand properly and could stop the door from opening. Decide whether you’re going to have:
- A concrete base laid on hardcore
- Concrete slabs on sharp sand
- Treated wood beams on hardcore or shingle
- An interlocking plastic system
- Treat wood with preservative To help your shed last as long as possible, you should coat all the wooden parts with timber preservative before you put it together.
- Put the shed floor together Some will need more assembly than others, but you need to make sure that the floor panel is attached to the joists; follow the manufacturer’s instructions for the correct spacing.
- Put up the shed walls
- Mark the centre point of each wall on its bottom edge, then do the same for the shed floor so you can line them up together.
- Stand the gable end on the base and line it up. Check that it’s vertical with a spirit level – you might need someone to support the panel while you do this. Use a temporary holding batten to keep it in place.
- Fix a side panel to the gable end panel with countersunk screws, then add the second side panel in the same way.
- Fit the roof
- If the shed comes with a support bar, put this in position before you put the roof panels in.
- Nail the roof panels in place, ensuring there’s a parallel and equal overlap at each end.
- Roll out some roofing felt from front to back, leaving a 50mm overlap at each side. Secure it with clout-headed felt tacks at 100mm intervals.
- Apply mastic sealant to the outside corners, then fix each corner trim with 30mm nails.
- Add the fascias and finials, predrilling 2mm holes to avoid splitting the wood. Nail them through the felt into the shed using 40mm nails.
- Add the shed windows
- Slide each windowsill into the tongue and groove cut out, then put the window cover strip in position, fixing it to the vertical framing.
- From inside the shed, put the glazing sheets into the window rebates, making sure the bottom edge of the glazing sheets sit on the outside of the sill.
- Fix the window beading on the top and sides with 25mm nails.
- Fix the walls to the floor Before you do anything, make sure you check that the centre marks on the walls line up with the marks on the shed floor. Then fix the wall panels to the floor with 50mm screws, aligning them with the joists. And that’s it! But if you’re not confident in building a shed yourself, there are plenty of professionals available who will be happy to help.
Dunbeath
Dunbeath is a village in south-east Caithness, Scotland on the A9 road. It was the birth place of Neil M. Gunn (1891-1973), writer of The Silver Darlings, Highland River and so on, many of whose books are embeded in Dunbeath and also its Strath. Dunbeath has an extremely rich historical landscape, the site of many Iron Age brochs as well as a very early middle ages monastic site (see Alex Morrison's archaeological study, "Dunbeath: A Cultural Landscape".) Of Dunbeath's landscape, Gunn wrote: "These tiny straths, like the Strath of Dunbeath, have this intimate elegance. In boyhood we are familiar with every square backyard of it. We incorporate it literally and also our memories hold it. Birches, hazel trees for nutting, swimming pools with trout and also a sometimes noticeable salmon, river-flats with the wind on the bracken as well as disappearing rabbit scuts, a wealth of wild blossom as well as little bird life, the rising hawk, the unanticipated roe, the ancient graveyard, ideas of the individual who as soon as lived much inland in straths as well as hollows, the past and the present held in a minute of day-dream." ('My Little Britain', 1941.). There is a community museum/landscape analysis centre at the old town institution.
