DIY She Shed on a Budget
The almighty she-shed! I was incredibly lucky to have a beautiful she-shed at our old house.
Since Cully and I aren’t afraid to do the work ourselves, a DIY she-shed on a budget was in order for this beauty.
I loved that she-shed. It was the perfect space for me to be creative, host workshops, and relax after a long day of work.
We sometimes camped out in it with the dogs! Cheap entertainment, I suppose? 🙂
Oh how I miss that space and can’t wait to build the next she-shed at our new house! (shhhhhh, don’t tell Cully…he doesn’t know yet)
Building a DIY she-shed on a budget was numero uno when we started this project, and it will be numero uno for the next DIY she-shed.
We were hoping we could use the existing shed in the back yard as the starting point.
However, we quickly found that it was too far gone with rot and it had to be torn down.
The good news is, we had the existing cement slab to work with and that saved us some moo-la.
We are certainly not experts in shed building, so this won’t be a step by step of how we built the shed.
But I do have a list of incredible resources that helped us with the process and am happy to share with you.
Recommended Reading for She Shed Ideas
The first step I take in every project is to get inspired. A few books I recommend for she shed ideas are:
- She Sheds and She Shed Style by Ericka Kotite
- Junk Beautiful: She Sheds by Sue Whitney
- A Woman’s Shed by Gill Heriz
Recommended Resource for Building Your She Shed
For the building side of things (eh-hem, more Cully’s realm), we had several ways to go about it.
The best resource we found was by Ryan Henderson.
We came across Ryan’s shed building plans online and we were hooked.
Cully is very much a instructions follower kind of guy (me, not so much), so Ryan’s materials would be a wise investment to make sure we did things right.
I was worried all the plans would be super basic, man-like shed plans. Boy was I wrong!
There are many awe-stricken plans that would make the perfect she-shed.
She Shed Building Materials
We purchased most of the building materials from Home Depot. We have always found the staff to be so helpful with any and all questions we have. And trust me, being avid DIYers, we have a LOT of questions 🙂
To save some money, we shopped at Habitat for Humanity for the windows and doors. We found gently used ones that worked perfectly!
Why I Love Ryan’s Shed Plans:
Saves Money
Cully and I looked at those shed kits you can buy, but didn’t want to pay the marked up prices just because we were buying it as a kit.
Since Ryan lists out what is needed, you won’t pay for that ‘convenience’ mark up with a kit. Perfect for frugal people like us!
Saves Time
Let’s be real, I would not know this from first hand experience (as this is Cully’s area of expertise), but every measurement and cut matters.
Ryan shows you the exact measurement you need and how it all fits together for a seamless build in each and every plan.
Provides Reassurance
This one was mostly for me. I trust Cully whole-heartedly when it comes to big DIY projects…and we both know that we don’t know EVERYTHING when it comes to a big project like building a shed.
In typical Cully fashion, he added his own pizzaz to our she-shed. We wanted to have an overhang, deck (the dogs used it to sunbathe mostly), and a taller ceiling to give the illusion of more space.
I couldn’t have asked for more! I absolutely LOVED this she-shed and have so many fond memories of it.
If you are on the fence at ALL about the process of building your she-shed, I encourage you to give Ryan’s shed plans a try. It helps in a tremendous way!
The big question now is…what design will we pick next?
XOXO,
Krista
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What size shed is this? Looks great!
Thanks so much, Gaby! Our shed dimensions were 10×14 🙂
How much did it cost you to build this?
Hi Beth! Thanks for your question. This is going to be more of a ballpark figure as we had several projects going on at the same time that we purchased materials for…but I want to say it was somewhere between $4,500 and $5,500. That includes insulation/drywall and hiring an electrician to wire it all. The cement slab was already existing, so we saved some money there. We also used repurposed materials when possible to save money. We had access to a used building materials store near us (where we purchased much of the wood, etc…) and we purchased used doors and windows to help save. Hope that helps!
I have Ryan’s shed plans; curious which plan you used? I’m wanting to make a Pub/Club House and this design seems perfect. Thanks!!
Hey Joey! Thanks for your question. We used the “10×12 Storage Shed” plan as our main guide (the shed on the cover is red, for reference — not sure if there is more than one with that title)…but in our typical (crazy) DIY fashion, we adjusted the design to fit the cement slab we were working with and the style we wanted. We liked the simplicity of the shed with the added porch in the front. We were working with an existing cement slab that was 10×14, not 10×12. So the actual shed portion we built was 10×14, then we added the wood porch in front of the cement slab. The roof part of the plans were far too detaily for our patience level…lol….so we built it with a more traditional roof. And, we were using repurposed materials for the windows and doors to save money, so we had to adjust the framing to fit what we had. Best of luck with your pub/club house! That sounds like fun!
What color blue was used on the shed?
Appreciate the recommendation. Let me try it out.
I truly appreciate this blog article.Thanks Again. Keep writing.