Storage Sheds For Outdoors

You can get or build a shed for any purpose, any size, any design. There is probably a Taj Majal shed design out there somewhere. So, what do you need a shed for? Do you need it to store the gardening tools? Do you need to store an RV? How about all the winter sports equipment? Or the winter’s supply of fuel? A woodshed is a fairly simple concept—a roof to keep the rain off, and open sides for ventilation. For storing things other than firewood you have to ask yourself:

• Plastic or wood?
• Free-standing or lean-to?
• Permanent or temporary?
• Big or small?
• Pre-fab, DIY, contractor or found materials?
• Will the shed be noticeable? Will it be an eyesore or an asset?
• And, of course, what can you afford?

If you’re the sort of person who thinks everyone gardens with stainless steel tools imported from England, well, you probably want a contractor to build some variation of Versailles in your back yard. For the rest of us, we might have to be content with a nylon awning stretched over a pvc pipe pergola to house the RV. Perhaps a large closet tacked onto the exterior of the house will do everything you need. It can have the same siding as the house and blend in unobtrusively.

Or, you may be considering buying a molded plastic shell with a door, possibly a window. Do look at the design logically and pretend you’re rainwater trying to get in. Plastic will be cold in the winter, hot in the summer. You can’t use it to store anything heat-or-cold sensitive. Eventually, severe weather will dry and crack it. Imagine how you would repair a plastic gallon milk jug or water bottle. Do you think you could make it leakproof if it were damaged? If what you need to store is at all temperature/humidity sensitive, you may want to re-think plastic.

The bottom line is: store only what you absolutely need to store, in a space that won’t tempt you to fill it with more stuff than you need, and buy or build with suitable materials using the least amount of money you can get away with.

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