Fixing an old shed | The Survival Gardener

This shed belongs to some friends. They just bought a house not too far from us, and had a sad little building in the backyard that needed some love:

A month or so ago they asked if I wanted to demolish it and take the wood for a chicken coop. I said “sure,” then went over to take a look. After some review, I realized it was saveable.

The roof was smashed in some time before they bought it, and the rafters had rotted out and water had soaked the interior. Yet it was on a slab, and was a generous 12′ x 16′ building. Maybe it was worth saving, I thought.

I had my crowbar in hand as I surveyed it, then turned to the wife and said,

“You know… this really just needs a new roof. Building an outbuilding like this might cost $6,000 in lumber and materials right now…”

She said, “Do you know how to put on a roof?”

“Yes, kind of. I know how we did it in Grenada. I could do it.”

So I started working on it. First I hunted down new roofing panels, wood and screws. Then I started tearing off the old roof.

As I did, I discovered the rot had also spread into the bottom of multiple 2 x 4s in the framing, so I started replacing and splicing those together. Installing a roof on bad walls is a poor idea.

After a day of cutting out and replacing rotten pieces in the walls with help from some of my younger kids and CJ, Daisy and I put up new rafters and purloins, then put on brand-new 14′ metal roofing panels.

Now it looks like a Caribbean beach shack. Just need to paint it pink and turquoise!

Rain is expected on Sunday, so we wanted to get it covered as fast as possible. We also need to be free tomorrow so we can work on yard and garden projects on my own homestead.

I think this roof will do just fine through the rain:

The project isn’t really done yet, as the inside needs some more work. There’s a rotten shelf in there that needs to be rebuilt with new plywood, plus I need to add more anchor screws to the walls and rafters.

There’s also some wood in the sides that needs replacing – like here:

Over time, leaves and debris and soil built up around the edges of the shed, causing some of the lower wood to rot out. With a bit more work, we can fix that too. Then we just need to repaint it and patch up the gaps to keep out critters.

Incidentally, this project is why I haven’t finished another video recently. We have one half-filmed, but it needed to wait until the shed roof was on. Maybe we’ll get to it tomorrow.

It was fun doing some carpentry again. It reminded me of building our little cabins in the tropics. Tomorrow we’ll get some of our own work done.

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