Fly Me To The Shed

Posted by Steve
I re-clad the side of my shed. The old boards were starting to curl - due to lack of maintenance on our part - and risked letting in water. My wife wanted to get a whole new shed and have someone deliver and install it (cost between £300-£600). Being a terminal cheapskate and nutter, I decided to source some new boards from a local sawmill and re-clad it myself. Total cost was £54 and about 6 hours work. Given that I only used basic hand tools (claw hammer, tenon saw, knife, sandpaper), that's not too bad. I did find myself wishing for a nailgun though.

The boards on the door are also curling and splitting. That's my next project!


This is how it looked before I got destructive with my claw hammer.


Sides off.


Naked shed! NB windows were not replaced at this time because I'd forgotten to buy them when I was at the sawmill. Next time I go there I will get some proper glass panels and fit them at a later date.


The new boards. Because I'm an idiot, I bought tongue-and-groove instead of shiplap. But they're otherwise the right dimensions and do the same job, so it's no big deal. I used the longest and shortest boards today. The mid-length boards are for the door.

The pressure-treated boards were all cut to size using a tenon saw, then sanded at the ends and given two coats of fence/shed treatment. As you'll see, the unpleasant colour I chose doesn't quite match the existing hideous colour, but it's close enough.


Adding the first few boards. The underside of the window frame has a groove in it and the long board across the middle must sit in that groove so it goes in first. Everything else goes in around it.


A closer view of the right side.


And again.


They seem to fit ok.


Left side's done now.


A wider shot. I re-used some of the nails from the old boards as well as some new annular or ring shanked nails. At each batten, each board got one old nail and one new one. In total I knocked in nearly 100 nails. And I only hit my own thumb once! Like I said, a nail gun would've been handy.


Looking nice and neat inside.


Detail of the inside. The shed was originally made by making up each panel separately and then nailing them together to form the structure. Rebuilding the side while it's attached to the frame means there's not enough space to get the tongue into the groove at the top, so I snapped off the back of the groove and just nailed the board on. No-one will notice and it won't let any rain in.


All done! The last two long boards were tricky as there wasn't enough space to tap them into the grooves of the boards above. I borrowed a crowbar and used a lump of old wood as a fulcrum to lever the boards into place.
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