This was a rather different work from the normal repair it/fix it type jobs. When the customer bought his house there was a large and very sturdy looking shed at the back of his garden. The roof felt was long gone and there was a rotten corner in the roof panel but otherwise, it was in a very good condition. The only problem was that the customer didn’t like where the shed is in his garden. He planned to keep his gardening tools in it and it’s just not convenient to walk down to the very end of the garden every single time to get the secateurs (we are talking about a really long garden). So the project had 3 goals. 1: to move the shed closer to the house. 2: repair rotten roof corner and re-felt roof. 3: to change the door on the shed. After moving the shed it ended up in a different angle and the door was on the wrong side. So the last task was to build a new doorframe inside, cut out the wall for new door and patch up the old door opening.
Large project and it took us nearly two days to complete it. First we started to take the shed apart. Roof came off relatively easy but the walls were fixed together really strong with large bolts. Luckily only one bolt snapped, all the others came out nicely after a bit of convincing. Once all the walls were off, we could have a good look on the base. We found a bit of rot underneath, so that needed a touch as well. When I finished with all the floor repair and reinforcement, it was time to place the floor on its concrete base. Obviously, the concrete was not level, so I spent another 40 minutes propping up various parts to keep the floor panel as level as possible.
The next step was to reinstall wall panels. This step went super quick, because the floor was square and level. Panels slotted together perfectly and the long bolts went back into their places smoothly.
After this I could focus on the roof. I stripped off all the old felt/plastic sheets and I could have a proper look on the water damage. One corner of the roof was completely rotten away, so I had to replace some of the timber frame and some of the boards as well.
After this it was time for the new roof felt. I used the heavy duty shed felt which is a lot harder to work with (as it’s a lot thicker) but it will last a lot longer. Hopefully. I first checked which side of the roof is the lower end as I had to start there. Rolled out the felt, cut off the excess and started nailing down the edges.
Before the second roll, I checked and set out the overlap between the felt layers and also fired some felt adhesive between them. Third layer went on the same way, and after that I only had to nail all the edges and all the overlaps. Large roof, lots of nails and a lot of hammering.
I added a fair bit of weight for the originally not so light roof panel, so it was a two men operation to lift on the roof panel to its final position. Once the roof panel was on, I fired long bolts into the frame so it won’t come off by the wind. By the end of this it was past 17:00 so I had to call it a day. Long hours, but the shed was in position, the floor and roof were repaired and the roof was re-felted. Happy day.
The next day I started with the door. Old door came off again and I started to set out for a new door frame on the inside. I checked everything twice to make sure that the door will fit again nicely on its new location. The next step was the tricky one. Cutting away the side of the shed while I don’t cut into the new frame behind. At first I wanted to use my circular saw on it, but it was way too much powerful for the flimsy tongue and grove panels. I had to go with a slower and more gentle solution so I got out my trusty multitool.
It took me over half an hour to cut away all the panels but luckily I didn’t damage any of them. The next step was easy. Nail the cut off panels to cover the original door opening. Because of all the prep work, the panels were neat and snug, they covered the old openings seamlessly.
So at this point, we had the old door opening completely covered, we had a new door frame and the whole on the wall, which was ready for the door. Before hanging back the door, I had to swap around the hinges and locks. Some of the hinges unfortunately were completely seized, they hardly moved. After I sorted some new hinges, the door was ready to go back. Couple of new screws and voila, job is finished. It took me/us a day and a half in total and it was hard work, but at the end the customer had a shed on a new location, with repaired timber on the floor and roof, a new felt roof and the door on a different side. Happy customer, happy handyman.
Screw it! 