Home Improvement Today?

Appreciate your input and damn thats a lot. That's why I'm trying see potential costs if i built it myself without their markup's or labor rates. Ive been reading on average they mark everything up 30% when you hire someone to do it. While i understand and dont mind them doing that for themselves, I aint paying anyone to do something i know i can do.

 

I was willing to pay to have something done promptly. But the quote I got was from a guy who was 3 hours late after picking the day and time.

it’s a tough job to hire out. Most people are going to want to see a big payday.

 

While I haven't built one recently, my 12 x12 is in such poor conditon that I have thought about it. I got a catalog from 84 Lumber that has shed "kits", you can go to the website and get a current market price which may give you an idea on material prices.

 

I've shopped quite a few kits. The value for the money isn't there in my book, b/c the foundation is the hard part. Doing the walls is probably one of the easier bits, and many kits don't help much with the roof, though some of the nicer ones do. And they are all OSB, I'd rather do marine grade plywood and spend a bit extra b/c it's all super wet here.

In the end, I'm going to focus on a real shop/garage with storage and spend big to get big rather than dumping money into a shed.

 

Have you thought about looking for shed kits from a big box store?

 

Finished grade with electrical, HVAC and foundation? Check your local codes for how big you can build first.

Got a 10x14 shed 2 years ago, and finished its interior myself. It’s about $65-70/sq ft. build cost for mine.

 

Now that the big wall is done I got to move up to the hallway (landing). We tested our popcorn ceiling and it has asbestos. I'm typically pretty "all-in" on not caring about that type of stuff and would have preferred to scrape, but instead we think the safest thing is to board over. We also hate the boob lights.


We really like the flush-mounted LED pot lights. The issue was if we just overboard the ceiling the drywall would be too thick for the clips on the lights to engage. The round boxes were also tiny, but luckily they were attached to my trusses. So I cut this area super wide and they didn't fall out. Doing it this way when I cut the new drywall boards there was nothing behind my light that impeded the clips; it just clipped to the 1/2" ceiling board.






I will say that overboarding on a ceiling is a pain. Fishing for the trusses wasn't too bad, but I really didn't want to disturb the popcorn that much. So most of the time I tried to limit holes in the ceiling and just eyeballed.


I also had no idea my smoke detector was wired. The other 4 in the house are all battery. I replaced the one in my downstairs next to our fireplace with. Nest Protect and love it. So we did the same here .




You might also notice I reduced the number of lights in the ceiling. We had 3 boob lights and decided to reduce down to 2 pot lights. The new lights are plenty bright, and the 3rd nipple was waaaay out of place. The landing next to the closet is maybe 2' deep and doesn't need its own light off center. It was awkward to begin with.

I had some Michael Strahans I needed to prefill the night before taping. I've never hung drywall on a ceiling, so I guess you live and learn.




Next day I embedded the tape. I'm not over boarding the walls but had to tape the inside corners, regardless.


Second coat trying to feather further from the joints


Today's third coat; it's 90% of the way there. I need to do some touch ups with quick set. I feathered the mud further down the wall so that I can have a longer transition area when I go to texture. It should tie into the ceiling a little better and won't be as noticeable.


The wall on the right of the last picture is being skim coated, so I didn't feather that far into it. I'll skim coat that wall tomorrow and then sand when I get back from thanksgiving. Then texture and paint immediately.

Starting to think a little forward, though, into my staircase. I pulled-back the carpet today so I can get in tight with my skim coat. Well, it turns out the carpet nosing was only covering the edge of my subfloor and not pure drywall.


My other half is adamant that we won't be putting any cove mould under my new wood nosing, so this needs to be drywalled flush with the MDF subfloor. Suggestions on how to proceed? My idea -- it's just a thought I'm not a real carpenter -- is to take my tracksaw and cut this whole nasty wood part back 1/2". Like this:


Then take a 1/2" piece of birch plywood, nail it to the subfloor, and then mesh tape the transition from the plywood to the drywall. Then proceed to mud/feather it. I'll have to do this same thing on the open part of my staircase, I think. I'm kind of afraid to peak under the carpet there now. Any help is appreciated!

 

My favorite stud finder, or screw find I guess. If you can find old server magnets they're great.

 

You’re in NJ. You might want to look for an Amish built shed, they deliver to your house. I’ve priced them and I can’t buy the material for the price they can build and deliver.

 

This. I poured a pad for my buddy who bought one of these. Great quality.

 

~ is there no vapour barrier / air barrier above your original drywall layer in your attic ?

~ is your plywood under your carpet over old t&g flooring or shiplap subfloor ?

 

No vapor barrier — we have vents in the attic.

Yes the MDF underlayment sits on a vapor barrier that is over really thick Doug fir T&G subfloor. It’s like 8/4. I think the MDF is sealed with shellac or something.

 

Attic vents and vapour / air barrier are 2 separate things but I was just curious , you are likely to have a lot of heat loss through your lights into your unconditioned attic space but thats kinda the nature of older house .

I think you are on the right track of cutting back the subfloor to a point that will act as backing for your new drywall strip

 

Ah -- well the build code here says you can forgo a vapor barrier if you have attic vents in the same sentence, so I figured they are related. FWIW there's about 12" of blown insulation in the attic. I found that out the hard way when I started enlarging the holes .

Okay thanks a lot! I'll try it after the holiday and see how it goes!

 

So basically your code is saying "if you have a vented attic , you can put as much heat and moisture from your conditioned space into your unconditioned space as you like because it will not build up in the attic"

sense , this makes none , lol

 

*in my official Narrator's voice* "This building code brought to you by: Big Utilities. Why heat just your home when you can also make it warm for the squirrels in your attic!"

 

My first fence job. 5 hours yesterday laying out and installing the 7 posts. 2 hours today installing the 6 fence sections. Guess my layout was spot on as that angled section was about 1" from the corner of the house.

 

I haven’t built a shed (yet) but did build a chicken coop a decade ago. I mention it because I bought ‘plans’ vs a ‘kit’, which was much cheaper. Of course I had to cut all the wood myself but it made it a fairly simple DIY.

 

Several years ago I priced building a shed, 12 x 16. At that time it was far cheaper to have an Amish built one delivered than build it myself.

What I also discovered was that the shed structure upgrades were a tremendous value.
I got 16 OC walls, 12 OC, 2 x 6 floor joists and also an upgraded 3/4" treated plywood on the floor, it made for a very solid shed.

This is the builder I used: https://backyardoutfittersusa.com/

I dealt with a local small business to place the order. The shed arrived right on schedule, exactly to order and very well built. The driver used a cool remote control motorized shed mule to place it.

 

Serious question, Would the amish sheds would have a website? I'd like to research them more.