How to build your outdoor shed's floor

Before starting building the floor, it’s advised to build a foundation. The floor frame will be placed upon it.

Using treated wood is very important, as it will be permanently in contact with soil moisture. Besides, if it is your intention to store tools or machines they will probably be constantly wet and by this way your shed floor will not last for long. 

The following scheme is an example of a possible floor structure:

Shed floor frame

As you can see the structure is very simple. It’s composed by two main boards, two edge boards, the middle boards and finally plywood or other type of coating. 

Steps

In first place it’s necessary to cut all the elements with the proper length. It’s very important to guarantee that the elements that should have the same length do have it in fact. Because in other way after assembling everything you’ll get a crooked frame. 

Then, mark in the main boards the place where all the other boards will be nailed in. Ensure you put them equally spaced in order to distribute the weight correctly. Another important point is not to leave too much space between boards because that will weaken the plywood support.

Dispose the elements on the ground and verify if everything is as it should be. If so, assemble the structure using nails or screws with appropriate length.  

After that is time to place the floor frame upon the shed’s foundations. Ensure the foundations offer a solid, balanced support to the floor. Remember it will support the whole shed weight, so if there is something not correct with it you’re still on time to change it.

Fix the frame to the foundations. This will depend on the type of foundation chosen – there are many different techniques. 

To finish the floor, cover the frame with plywood, or another material you think appropriate.

How to paint your outdoor shed

It’s important to know how to paint your outdoor shed correctly. Not only to increase the quality of your work, but also to protect it against the elements. Bellow you will find tips and the most important steps to help you do it.

Follow the steps:

Picture Owner

First of all, you need to clean the painting area. Use a brush to remove the dust, spider-webs or other rubbish that may affect the quality of your work. If necessary, you can wash it with a hose or a water pressured machine.

After let the shed drying sand wood imperfections and loose paint. This will unify the painting and ensure the new paint adhere better (and last longer).

Protect the parts you don’t want to paint, like windows. You can use old newspapers, for example.

Before start painting it’s important to apply wood treatment to protect it. Don’t forget to use gloves from now on because this kind of products may be harmful for your skin.

How to paint a shed

After the treatment dry, paint a primary coat. This will make the final result look better and also increase the wood protection. After waiting a couple hours you can apply the paint itself. As sheds are big structures is better to use a painting roller. However a small brush is also useful to paint spots the roller can’t, like corners.

To improve the final result, ensure you paint always in the same direction.

If after the first coat you notice that the result is not solid you can repeat and paint another coat, since you respect the first’s drying time.