How I built a shed with free pallets.
In planning this, I looked at every example I could find on YouTube and Pinterest, while collecting pallets from Craigslist for free. As I collected the pallets, I kept a list of each pallet and the size. I knew I wanted to put my 4 wheeler and lawn mower inside, so I measured those as well.
A trip to home depot kicked off the official building phase. I bought 15 cinder blocks, a decision I second-guessed but eventually conceded to when there were exactly 15 cinder blocks left on the shelf. It was fate. They were heavy.
So heavy, in fact, that when I got home, I drove my car around back so I could just throw them on the ground straight from the trunk.
I set them out as I planned, 5 wide and 3 long. I took the two floor pallets to the back yard the same way, taking advantage of the fact that I don't care about my lawn by driving all over it.
When I set down the pallets, I realized I had to rearrange the cinder blocks to match the structural beams of the pallets.
After I had the layout correct, came the part I was dreading: leveling the cinder blocks. Maybe I should've put rocks down below everything, but I didn't. I wanted to get this done today, I'd procrastinated long enough. I got them all level and put the pallets down, the floor pallets looked great!
Of course, it turned out it was going to rain the next day. I didn't want to let the pallets get rained on, so i brought them inside. Back in the garage, but now they were in the other half of my garage, blocking access to my workbench. I had to get these out of my garage. The whole point of this project is to get more space in my garage by having a place for the 4 wheeler and lawn mower, but now I just have tons of pallets. I need to get moving on this project. So, I need a roof. Once I have a roof there, I can leave it outside, protected even if it rains. I found some metal panels at Home Depot for $5 a piece, so I got four of them.
Finally a sunny day came when I had some free time at lunch. I got out the Mitre Saw and began cutting the pieces of 2 by 4 which would hold the roof at an angle. I used the back porch as my cutting station. A 2 degree angle slope. I used math to figure out the lengths I needed. You ever just use math?
After cutting the supports, I tested them out. Holy shit it actually works! Math!
So now it's time to bring the other 2 pallets, same size as the floor pallets, out for the roof. I brought them out and laid them on top of the floor. My plan was to attach the roof panels, then prop up the roof on the floor using those 2 by 4 pieces.
I placed the panels on to see how it would look. Had some overhang and about 3 inches of overlap between panels.
With that all laid out, I go ahead and put some screws in there. I bought screws meant for this roofing, so they have little rubber washers so water can't go through. I drilled pilot holes and screwed them in. I put them on the higher part of the ridges because that way less water will pass them.
Now, I had to put the 2 by 4 supports under each support beam of the pallet. I didn't plan great here, because I couldn't reach the inner beams, and this thing was pretty heavy at this point. So I had to lift it up and flip it over.
But with it flipped over like this, I realized I also have to bolt together the 2 pallets. So first, I connected the angled 2 by 4 pieces to the pallet support beam (which is a 2 by 4) I used scrap wood to simply hold the 2 by 4 in place everywhere. I'll take off this piece of scrap wood later, but it works enough to just hold the 2 by 4 in place.
Then I bolted the 2 pallets together in 4 places.
I put the roof back on the floor and lined up all the pieces, and it looked good!
Finally, I cut a good amount off the front roof overhang using shears. Now it's ready to be rained on. I'm calling it a day.
A few days later, I had time to work on the walls. I had to cut a few pallets to a smaller size, so I got out the circular saw and went to work.
I had to cut a few of them in half widthwise, and one in half lengthwise. When I was done, I had the rough look of each wall. The two identical side walls.
And the back wall.
Next up is cutting the pieces that will be the sides of the front wall. I need enough space in the middle for the 4 wheeler and lawn mower to go through, so I had to make the side front pieces smaller than in my original plan sketch.
I came across a free pallet on Craigslist, and it looked really useful. So i got it. I had been planning on buying some 2by4s to use as support structures for the roof. Sort of like rafters. This pallet will do that perfectly.
I took apart the pallet and had 3 12ft 2 by 4s. I cut those in half to have 6 6ft 2 by 4s. The shed is 6ft wide so that's perfect.
Next up is to bolt the walls together. Using 3.5inch hex bolts, im securing the pallets together for each wall. First step is to lay them all out.
All walls bolted together and calling it a day.
The upcoming week had 4 days without rain in the forecast, so this was a good chance to put up the walls. First step is to remove the roof.
I bolted together the walls, but to secure them to the floor, I'm just planning to use 3 inch deck screws. They weight should hold them down, these screws are just to hold it all in place.
To put up each wall, I just set it on the edge of the floor, then screwed the 2 by 4 in at several places, trying to screw it into the 2 by 4 on the floor pallet as much as possible.
Then, when putting up the other walls, I also screwed the sides to each other to keep them together more sturdy.
All the walls are up, so now I need to put the rafters (?) up. These are two 2by4s on top of each other. This will distribute the weight of the roof better among the side walls.
Now time to put the roof back on. It was heavy.
With the roof on, now I had to measure and cut the final two support pieces for the middle roof rafter. I didn't get any pictures of cutting them, but you can see them on top of the middle rafter here.
I put screws in as many places as possible on the roof and support pieces, and it felt solid. That's it for today.