Firewood Shed

It wasn't very intentional but somehow over a few years I had accumulated two large wood piles. I had stacked them near a tool shed but they were uncovered and unstable and didn't look very neat.

So I decided to build a wood shed. After scouring Pinterest and Google for wood shed plan ideas I decided to model my shed after this one. Here's how that went step by step.

Foundation

"It's just a firewood shed." I repeated that phrase to myself a lot during this process. I decided I shouldn't overconcern myself with making it the strongest structure in the world. It's just holding wood, and that wood will help support it when it's full. That said, I wanted to make sure I had an even foundation that wouldn't shift too much over time. After researching the various possibilities I decided on using skids laid in gravel. I used pressure treated 4x4 skids (rated for ground contact). If I was building something bigger and more important 6x6 skids would have been better for the additional stability.

People say firewood should be about 16" long so I was planning on making the shed 20" deep to give it some space on the front and back to keep it away from rain. I also planned on the back wall of the shed being a few inches away from the other shed to increase airflow to help dry out the wood.

Floor

With the skids my floor wasn't exactly going to be touching the ground but I thought it best to use pressure treated 2x4s rated for ground contact to build the floor framing. Especially because the floor will be the hardest part to replace if it ever rots away.

I bought a 5 pound box of pressure-treated approved deck screws to make most of the connections on the shed. 5 pounds was WAY more than I needed but it's just so much cheaper to buy them in bulk and I'll use them for another project later.

To make room for the foundation I had to clear away some rocks that were helping support the gravel foundation of the adjacent tool shed. So after laying the skids I put the rocks back between the skids and under the floor. Mostly just to have place to put them but they should also help support everything.

The floor itself uses 5/4x4 pressure treated deck planks. To encourage air flow I used a 1x2 board as a spacer. I must have miscalculated something because I ended up being one board short. Luckily I had a pressure treated 1x4 from an old project but if you look closely at the photo you can see that the board 3rd from the far end doesn't quite match the others. But it works.

Corner Posts

The "posts" on this shed are just 2 2x4s arranged perpendicularly on each corner. Since my shed is 10' long (to match the width of the shed next to it) I thought it could use additional support so I put a single 2x4 post 5' from each end on the front and back of the shed.

If I built it again I would use pressure treated wood for the posts but I think they should last a while since they're off the ground and the top end is covered by the roof. I did have one length of pressure treated 2x4 left over which I used for the rear middle post since that one will be the hardest one to replace if I ever need to do that.

Instead of following the plans exactly here I wanted the roof framing to sit on top of the posts. I think it made it easier to install.

Roof framing

Here's where it got a little tricky and was something I had never done. Instead of trying to figure out the exact angle the roof supports should be I just kind of used a lot of scrap wood to test out some things. It still didn't end up being a perfect fit but I think it's enough.

The cross members are spaced 24" apart because the metal roofing is 26" wide. This allows for the overlapped pieces to be screwed through both pieces of metal and into the stud.

Side and back boards

Since these boards aren't as necessary for structural support I just used thin cedar fence planks for these. It also made it easy that they come in 5' lengths which meant I could use two of them without having to cut anything to span the 10' length of the shed. Wanting to promote airflow I used the same 1x2 spacer for these boards. Even though they're thin and mainly meant to just keep the wood in they should help the shed be more stable overall.

Roof

I thought about doing a shingled roof to match the adjacent shed but I already had one large piece of corrugated metal roofing left over from a different project and I liked the more rustic look overall of the tin roofing.

As I mentioned, this roofing is 26" wide which allows for 2" of overlap over the joist so metal roofing screws can go through both pieces of metal into the joist.

Completed Shed

Here's the finished product, full of wood. Overall I'm pretty happy with it. It's just a firewood shed.