Are you tired of dealing with all the clutter in the garage or basement? Shed kits make it easy to solve these storage problems by allowing you to quickly and painlessly increase the amount of storage or work area that you have available. You may even find they can serve as a playhouse for the kids or a small greenhouse for plants.
With how much sheds have to offer, it’s not surprising that you find one in just about every yard in America. However, sheds are often built with shoddy materials and poor layouts, and can quickly become an eyesore or even dangerous to the family.
This is why shed kits have become so popular, since they can be professionally designed and have well manufactured components, while allowing the home owner to save money by building it themselves. By going with a shed kit, you are able to get professional quality fabrication of components, without having to pay professional style prices for the construction. It’s the best of both worlds.
DIY with Shed Kits
While DIY enthusiasts probably have all the tools and equipment necessary to build their own shed from scratch, most home owners don’t have their own shop or extensive tool set. That doesn’t mean they can’t build their own shed though, as storage shed kits are readily available at home improvement centers and hardware stores.
These kits come with prefabricated parts that can be quickly set in place and screwed or bolted together. The plans are clearly drawn out so it’s easy to figure out where each component fits in the design.
Kits for Storage Sheds
The most common type of shed is the storage shed. This is generally an all purpose type of shed with shelves for storage of excess items for the home, as well as areas for lawn and garden tools. Adding a storage shed to your yard is probably the easiest way to increase your storage space, and can really open things up in your closets, garage, and basement.
Wooden or Metal Shed Kits?
When it comes to storage shed kits, most of them are made from wood these days. That’s because of how easily wood can be worked with, as well as the natural look and feel it brings to your yard.
Metal shed kits have a lot to offer though. With increased weight to strength ratios, the sheds can be built so that there is more interior room for any given dimensions. Also, the weather and pest resistance of some metals, like aluminum, are better than wood.
The downside to metal sheds are the way they look. They often look tacky or out of place in a natural setting like the lawn or garden. Still, with the right finish, or when planned into the landscaping properly, a metal shed can be both useful and beautiful at the same time.
Alternative Shed Building Materials
Vinyl storage sheds are becoming more and more common. With the lightweight, strong, and weather resistant vinyl material, this allows for sheds that can even be portable. Though most vinyl sheds are still conventionally built and placed on their own foundation.
Other smaller sheds are sometimes made of various plastics. These sheds are really only sheds in name, and are actually more like large storage bins. In fact, the same manufacturers who make the storage bins we’re all familiar with make these types of sheds too, like Rubbermaid.
While it might seem a little cheesy to have a shed made of artificial materials such as these, lightweight and small storage sheds can still be very useful, especially since you can move them around at will.
Playhouse, Garden, and Potting Sheds
While most people are familiar with using their shed for storage, not as many understand the alternative utility that sheds can provide. Like any structure, sheds can bring comfort and shelter to outdoor environments. While most people wouldn’t want to live in a shed, they can make great playhouses for children when decorated correctly. Of course you wouldn’t want your children in there playing with power toys, so in that case you’d keep the tools and dangerous items in other storage locations.
A shed in the garden is a great place to store tools, but there are other things it can do for you as well. Seedlings need protection from the elements to thrive and get off to a healthy start. Having a window or skylight in the shed can allow you to grow seedlings in an area where they can’t be bothered by insect pests or damaged by hard wind or rain. This can give you the benefits of a small greenhouse, and still allow you an area to store your tools.
Potting sheds take this idea one step further, and devote the shed’s exterior to growing plants as well. Potted plants can hang from under the eaves, or are placed on special shelves that are built into the shed itself. There often is room in the interior for some tools and garden supplies still. The great thing about potting sheds is how beautiful they look, and how well that look melds into the rest of your lawn or garden.
