The Rabbit Shed :: Do-It-Ourselves

Let me walk you through our Saturday. I would have posted this sooner, but I took the kiddo down to the Bay Area for a much needed Ikea shopping trip.

So... Saturday. I had already picked up all our lumber Friday and drawn out the shed plans so we were ready to go first thing in the morning. I cleared out a pretty level spot next to our deck to put the rabbit shed.



Then we measured out all of our pieces so that they were ready for Trevor to cut with the skill saw. The plans required a 10-degree angle to make the roof go from 8-feet at its highest point and 7-feet at its lowest point. Keep in mind this is an 8 foot wide x 8 foot long shed.



In total the plywood we had was: the front top piece with a 10-degree slope for the roof and a piece cut out for the top of the door, two front bottom pieces to go on either side of the door, one whole 4'x8' piece for the bottom left side, one whole 4'x8' piece for the bottom right side, one rear top piece with a 10-degree angle for the roof, and one whole 4'x8' piece for the rear bottom.
The lattice we had were two pieces: one was a whole 4'x8' piece for the top left side and one 3'x8' piece for the top right side.
See?



Then I was kicked off the construction crew. My brother and Trevor took over and started putting everything together using 2"x3" studs for supports and framing. [Per my instructions] they framed up the doorway, the seams where the tops and bottom pieces of each side met, and used 4"x4" posts as the corners. Sorry for the lack of technical terms here, but I was kicked off the construction team.



My budding graffiti artist struck again.



Here the boys are putting in the support beams for the roof and the squiggly things the corrugated roofing sits on.



Here's a photo montage of what got done on Saturday.















The door is now attached and the whole shed has two coats of exterior paint that matches the Frühlingskabine on it. We just need one more piece of roofing to overhang the front and rear walls better and I need to paint the door. But all in all, lookin' good!

Total cost: $320 (after additional roofing piece)

Still over $100 cheaper than buying one of those ugly aluminum sheds with no ventilation and about $1,000 cheaper than a nice wooden shed built by someone else.

- Sarah