A-Frame Garden Shed built from preused wood and pallets

[SwissGuy]

Originally I planned to do this during my summer break, but getting the building permits took longer than expected.
I intend to build an a-frame garden Shed from used wood (buying all new wood would cost me a fortune at the moment...).
This is how it will look:

The right half of the front will be covered with perspex or similar and will swing up to open the living space to the garden. The smaller half will act as actual tool shed and will also contain a composting toilet. In the top half will be a sleeping pod for one adult or two kids...

So far for the plans. This is where I'm at:

• 8 logs 8x20x400cm for the base (used to be the base of a terrace)
• 12 logs 10x10x~200cm for supporting structure (a former garage)
• Several pallets (slats for flooring and walls)
• A heavy vintage door (from another rebuilt garage)
• A tent that will act as a temporary tool shed (donation from a fellow camper) as I will disassemble the actual shed and reuse as much materials as possible.

Next week I will spend most of my time collecting more pallets and other building materials. I already have my hands on a batch of 10x10x400 logs for the roof construction, so I hope I will have most of the necessary materials together by end of next week and will spend the other week of my autumn break actually building the shed...

 

[SwissGuy]

Hauled over a batch of logs and planks. Me thinks this load wasn't really street legal in Germany, but the wood arrived safely on the building site...

Today I also put up the temporary tool shed in the back of the garden:

I built a improvised wall on the inside to lean all the garden tools against.

Tomorrow I will pick up more pallets and on Thursday I will have a look at some freebie wooden flooring...
Still need some gravel and stones for the foundation...

 

[SwissGuy]

Just realized that I posted this in the wrong thread before....

Today I made two tours with the trailer to pick up wooden pallets (now I know that exactly 20 fit into the trailer...). This gave me 26 usable pallets in total....

...and some wood to burn in the fire pit.

I plan to use the top slats from the pallets to close off the exterior walls and maybe do some flooring (depending on the free flooring I will inspect on thursday)
I also picked up 26 concrete plates, that will become a important part of the foundation of the shed.

 

[SwissGuy]

Two more pick-up trips today. First I collected some fine grained gravel on the other side of Berlin (one hour by car, one way)

Gravel unloaded and covered up (don't want the stray cats use it as a toilet)

On my second trip (this time just 15 min away), I picked up two more pallets and 153 bricks...
From this overgrown pile....

...into the trailer....

...into the garden (the kids made a really nice pile)

The guy with the bricks had bought the house with everything in it and is emptying it out (the previous owner seemed to be a bit of a hoarder). He offered me a Chevy Van standing in the garage, but I had to pass.

But while checking out the Chevy I found some bike parts I could take with me for free...

So another busy day came to a good bike lovers end!

 

[Oak Tree]

Keep it up. I’ll be watching.
several years ago, I salvaged enough wood to build a real nice patio cover.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

I'm liking the build. That red saddle looks pretty good too! Can't beat the price

 

[SwissGuy]

Made two more free scores today. First was some classic vintage wooden floor in ox red, covered with newspaper scraps from 1959. I will use them for the interior dividing wall with the red side facing the "living room". Of course I will try to keep as much of the newspaper scraps as possible, just cleaning them up gently and sealing all in with some PU cleare coating.

The floor in it's original place

Some newspaper details

Stacked up and covered in the garden

With the floor came some slats that I surely will find some good use for

Then I also scored another wooden floor for free. It's about 30 squaremeters and will be enough for the floor, front wall and back wall (underneath the corrugated roofing).

The only downside on this deal is, that I have to take out the floor myself and haul it down 5 floors (3,5m ceiling hight!)...!

First victim of this build are my working gloves...

Cheers! (Yeah, it was raining the whole time here...)

Now a hot shower and then I have to take the kids to sports...

 

[SwissGuy]

Just checked the actual retail prices for wooden logs. It looks like I saved about 2000€ on the logs alone... just by putting some time and effort into searching for second hand wood...
Later on I will have to calculate for the flooring as well...

 

[ifitsfreeitsforme]

this is great. I admire your skills, creativity and ability to scrounge materials.

 

[SwissGuy]

Keep it up. I’ll be watching.
several years ago, I salvaged enough wood to build a real nice patio cover.

Thanks for the encouragement! It's amazing what one can build from salvaged materials!

I'm liking the build. That red saddle looks pretty good too! Can't beat the price

It's always astounding what some people might throw away! If I wouldn't have looked into the garage, he probably would have tossed it...

this is great. I admire your skills, creativity and ability to scrounge materials.

The fun part on all of this is that I'm getting to know previously unknown corners of my city and meeting lots of friendly people.

 

[SwissGuy]

On site for the second batch of flooring. Most of the slats are 5m and 4m long. I intend to make a long cut to bring the them down to 2,5m (and 1,5m obviously). That's a length I can transport easily with my 2m trailer and it will fit the intended grid of the sheds roof and floor.
Everything is prepped for the long cut, now I need to wait for the owner who promised me a long extension cord, as all the electrics up here under the roof are cut off...

 

[SwissGuy]

Finally got my extension, long cut is done and a quarter of the flooring already out. Oh and that's no blurry lens. It's veeeeery dusty up here....

 

[SwissGuy]

Half of the flooring is out, nails pulled and stacked. No better tools for this than a hammer and a crowbar...

Now for the other half...

 

[SwissGuy]

All the flooring is out, all nails pulled. Now I "only" need to schlepp the whole batch 105 steps down...

 

[SwissGuy]

20 tours up and down the staircase later all flooring is loaded into the trailer...
Now I'm back home, the trailer is parked and will get unloaded on Monday, as I intend to spend the weekend with the kids on the campground.
Oh, and as I mentioned before: It was veeeeery dusty up there under the roof!

As my face looks about the same, I'll gonna take a shower now and call it a day!
Cheers!

 

[MattiThundrrr]

20 tours up and down the staircase later all flooring is loaded into the trailer...

Oof! Leg day!

 

[SwissGuy]

Oof! Leg day!
View attachment 175459

Spot on!
That's exactly how I feel right now!

 

[rat krate orange]

On site for the second batch of flooring. Most of the slats are 5m and 4m long. I intend to make a long cut to bring the them down to 2,5m (and 1,5m obviously). That's a length I can transport easily with my 2m trailer and it will fit the intended grid of the sheds roof and floor.
Everything is prepped for the long cut, now I need to wait for the owner who promised me a long extension cord, as all the electrics up here under the roof are cut off...
View attachment 175433

Good times with that.. Good luck... Razin...

 

[rat krate orange]

20 tours up and down the staircase later all flooring is loaded into the trailer...
Now I'm back home, the trailer is parked and will get unloaded on Monday, as I intend to spend the weekend with the kids on the campground.
Oh, and as I mentioned before: It was veeeeery dusty up there under the roof!
View attachment 175458
As my face looks about the same, I'll gonna take a shower now and call it a day!
Cheers!

.... covid any way...

 

[SwissGuy]

.... covid any way...

Sometimes the good comes with the bad. If it wasn't for protection against COVID, I probably wouldn't have brought a mask to the job and all that black dust would have ended up in my lungs...