Wood Storage Sheds – Build from Plans or Buy a Shed Kit?
Click Here for Instant Access to Over 200 Wood Shed Plans
There are a number of options to choose from when deciding on your backyard shed. As we have discussed in an earlier post, wood storage sheds are, overall, the best choice, but you need to go with what best fits your situation.
After deciding that a wood storage shed will serve your storage needs the best, the next question to answer is whether buying wood shed plans to build it yourself or buying a prefabricated wood shed kit is better. There are several factors that will influence your decision:
* Shed Design Needs
* Handyman Skills
* Time Available
Shed Design
In a previous post I talked about determining what you need from your shed based on “Use”, “Size” and “Look” factors. Keeping these in mind may very well answer the “build or buy” question for you. Prefab wood sheds are designed to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible, so they will be somewhat limited in their design elements. One of these limitations may point you in a certain direction, so let’s review them first.
Use – you can buy a shed kit that will be good for nearly any use, just as you can build a shed for just about any use. Modifications to a prefab shed are fairly easy to make, so you cannot go wrong with either choice here.
Size – prefab sheds are generally from 6 feet to 12 feet wide and from 6 feet to 24 feet deep (smallest shed would be 6’x6’ and the largest would be 12‘x24’). This provides a lot of size options and one may be the right one for you. However, if your shed needs to be a size outside of this range, you will need to buy shed plans and build it yourself.
Look – this is where a custom built wood shed will beat out a wood shed kit. You can find a prefab wood shed that will look reasonably close to your house and you can paint the shed to match, regardless of the design style.
However, if you want to have your shed really match your house, buying wood shed plans, modifying as needed and building it yourself is the way to go. This decision will be a personal preference, so if you find a shed kit that is close enough to make you happy, go for it!
Handyman Skills
Having confidence in your handyman skills is an important consideration. The primary benefit to ordering a shed kit is that everything is delivered to you ready to be put together. This means no reading shed blueprints, no trips to the lumber yard for materials, no measuring and no cutting.
Once you get your shed kit, it is just a matter of putting all of the pieces together, kind of like a 3-D puzzle except that there are instructions to help you get the job done quickly.
If you build the shed yourself, you obviously have to do all of the steps required to get to the point of being able to put it together. If you selected the proper wood storage shed plans, these steps will be simple to follow. You do not need to be a professional handyman in order to do this, but you do at least need to know how to use your tools safely (so you end the project with as many fingers as you had when you started 
).
Time Available
Here is where buying a wood shed kit beats building a custom wood shed. If you need to get a shed built quickly, a shed kit will allow you to get the job done significantly faster than building it yourself from plans. From the above section it is clear to see where the time savings will be found. Depending on the size and the number of hands helping, you could get your shed finished over a long weekend.
Even if you have the skills to build the shed yourself, you may not have the time needed to do it. In this case, buying a wood shed kit will be the way to go.
While buying a shed kit will cost more than buying the materials so you can build yourself, the additional cost is offset by the additional time (and possibly aggravation) needed to build the shed from the ground up. Please keep this in mind when using cost as a factor in the buy vs. build decision.
When it comes to adding your new wood storage shed to your backyard, you have two choices for getting the job done. If you need a highly customized shed and/or have the skills and time required to build it yourself, then buying wood shed plans is a good choice. If you want a shed that can be put together rather quickly and will still have some ability to be customized, a prefabricated wood shed kit will be perfect for you.
No matter which decision you make, you can find really good resources for both options on this page.
Get Instant Access to over 200 Wood Shed Plans, (or see the bottom of the page).
To check out Wood Shed Kits, please see the right hand side of this page.
Good luck with your shed project!
Until next time…
Click Here for Instant Access to Over 200 Wood Shed Plans
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