BoostedBrandon's grassroots shed, a build thread!

My crap has been taking up way too much space in our tiny place. There was an old building here, but it was this flimsy pre-fab place and a thunderstorm recently nearly took it down. I've decided that I'm gonna finish it off, and rebuild it. Using as little money as possible. I don't consider myself a "hippie" or "tree hugger" but I can get behind something green.

Enter the pallets.

I've got 27 at total, but I've still got more that I can pick up, I'm not certain how many I'm going to need.

The shed that I'm demolishing

Mom and dad put some new windows in their house, and the old ones are about 30 years old, and there was nothing wrong with them, short of the fact that they're inefficient and old. The county recently had a clean-up day, where you can take your stuff up to their designated place, unload it for free instead of paying at the dump. I hauled off an old TV, a broken door, and the old windows. I did, however save four windows. I doubt I'll need any more.

So today the demolition began. I enlisted the help of the BIL to help me get it down and apart. He's hidden, that's my daughter pictured there.

Once we got it down to bare floor, which was rotten plywood, and found gravel. Sorta.

The old place measured 10x7 and was 6 feet tall. I had to duck while inside of it, so the new one will be much taller. I'm thinking of adding one foot to the width, making it 10x8, and probably 7 feet tall in the back, and maybe 7' 6" in the front, with a simple, one piece sliding roof.

I'm not above buying lumber, but I was hoping to use the pallets for the actual wall structure of the place and not tearing them apart. The key to that is having pallets that are all the same size. My problem right now is that very few of mine are the same size.

So far, I have zero dollars invested, aside from gas money and sweat. I've taken an inventory of my pallets, and measured them all, unfortunately I didn't write the measurements on those pallets, lol.

Stay tuned for more updates as we try to build this thing as cheaply as possible.

My grandfather, his BiL and a mutual friend of theirs built a cabin for deer hunting out of pallets they "resourced" from work, back in the 40s. The initial structure was about 12'x18'. Every couple of years they'd add on - a kitchen, a bedroom, a porch, another bedroom.

It still stands today, and Pop & I hunt there every year, with six other descendants of the three that built it.

Good luck in your endeavor. May it stand the test of time.

This is an awesome idea, I'll be following the build.

My neighbor built a hunting shed from used crates he got from work. They did the job but were a lot more even and weathertight than pallets.

If you break down the pallets into the individual boards, you have very good wood of inconvenient sizes. Usually good oak, with no nasty chemicals. Getting nails through will not be possible without predrilling. Just need to be a bit creative to use the odd sizes.

Great idea.

With the various parts, can you "laminate" parts together to get longer total parts? Some good glue and screws should do the trick. I just don't know how good the structure is.

Well after much debating and mentally visualizing this place, I've come to the conclusion that the pallets will be disassembled, nails straightened and re used, and used for lumber that way. The framework of the thing will be built with actual, store bought lumber and plywood, and the rest will be pallet wood and the siding will be used for the roof.

Not a day off until Sunday, and even then I don't think I'll get to do much, being as I don't have the money to buy any real lumber. Off to dis assembly I go!

Good luck with the disassembly. My experience has been that the pallets use twist shank nails that are basically impossible to remove. You might be better off drilling the head off the nails and removing the boards then driving the shank down into the structural boards and leaving them there.