Building a Shed from the Bottom Up
Need more space for your lawnmower, gardening tools and snow blower? Consider building a backyard shed. It's not as difficult as you may think.
Home improvement expert Joseph Truini has just come out with his third shed-building book for active DIYers. Building Sheds includes step-by-step instructions for constructing five different styles of sheds plus an introduction to shed-building methods and materials.
Don't be surprised to see composite roofing from DaVinci Roofscapes make a guest appearance in the book. Truini, who has worked with DaVinci's imitation slate shingles in the past, used our synthetic slate roofing tiles to cover a 10-foot by 10-foot board-and-batten style shed he constructed for the book.
"The faux-slate roofing from DaVinci is incredibly durable so it's ideal for a shed," says Truini. "For this project we installed the polymer slate tiles in a one-inch staggered pattern, but they can also be nailed in a straight line. I think the staggered pattern produces a much more interesting-looking roof, but it does take quite a bit longer than running the roofing courses in straight lines." (see also Installing DaVinci Lightweight Tiles With a Staggered Pattern)
Several pages in the Building Sheds book (which is published by The Taunton Press and can be found at Lowe's stores and on Amazon.com and Taunton.com) are dedicated to the step-by-step installation of the imitation slate roof.
"Most shed-building books are filled with pretty pictures of finished sheds, but they give very little advice on how to actually build a shed," says Truini. "From the onset, I wanted to take a decidedly different and very DIY-friendly approach by showing how to build backyard buildings, starting quite literally from the ground up and topping off with some great roofs."