boards for making a shed type thing

[Gazz]

i have a sort of lean-to at the end of my garage, it was origionaly a dog cage for a gun dog, very roughly poured concrete floor, 5 galvo'd steel posts, and those mesh type panels found on temporary fences... sort of,

anyhoo, not owning a dog that needed caging, i promptly removed the mesh panels, but kept the uprights, and planned to attatch boards to the uprights (first i'll prolly fix some timber so i only have to drill the metal posts a couple of times)

i'm wondering what would be the cheapest boards to use, but not look too naff, i could just clad it in sterling board, but that would make the garden look like an alotment (which it does now, and a cross with a fly tipping site, but that's going to change soon, as my new GF is good with gardens)

i was thinking gravel boards, feather boards, old scaffold planks etc.

i have a router table, table saw, compound mitre saw and so on, so can modify any straight planking into a style that will allow an overlap for water to run off and all that.

Any suggestions for other boards to use, cheapness is paramount here, but not if it's going to look really naff,

i'm in nottingham if that helps.

[John Whitworth]

What? To judge how naff we can get away with? ;-)

[shazzbat]

Pallets [1]. Especially the long ones used for plasterboards and the like. Readily available now they mostly don't have a deposit. Get round your local industrial estate(s) and ask wherever you see a pile of pallets whether you can have some. Tell them it's for your allotment, they think you're a pauper and are more likely to give you stuff. The worst that can happen is that they say no. Same applies if you see a skip in someone's garden, they're not attached to the stuff in it.

But if you want something you can buy the required quantity in one go, I would say featherboard.

Steve

[1] Not blue ones.

[The Medway Handyman]

Feather edge - 50p a square metre (equivilant) in Wickes. Treated timber so it won't rot, splash some cheap timber treatment over it if you don't like the colour.

[Gazz]

Cheers for that heads up Dave,

I've found a possible source of old scaffold boards from 2 quid a length, but dunno anymore than that, i.e. what condition they are in, what length is useable etc, they are from a scaffolding company, so not nicked or owt, BUT it'd be a bit of work to make them work for my purpose, feather boards would be a lot easier to use, and look a lot less like an allotment shed.

[shazzbat]

The shed on my allotment is featherboard. You're not fond of allotments, are you?

Steve

[Gazz]

'fraid not, my garden looks like one atm, last owner had ploughed it, put a s**te heap at the end with the tarmac from the drive under it, massive compost heap, and loads of crap from when he left and had a massive bonfire in the middle and tried to burn everything.... lots of metal all over the garden as a result,

mind, some allotements are nice, neat rows of veggies, not a weed in sight, nice looking shed,

but then there;s the ones that were at the end of my parents house when i was growing up, 90% of the sheds made from old doors, bits of couregated tin from old pig shelters, and the one opposite the end out our garden, his shed was a couple of mk1 transit chassis half dug into the earth... he was made to remove them eventually and build a 'proper shed' but he did it out of scaffold planks planted upright in the soil.

just an allotement is nice in the right area, a residential place with 2 rows of bungalows that back onto each others gardens, where all the gardens are nice and neat, green and lush, then there's mine, a right shit hole, so i want to make it look as nice as i can.

[Muddymike]

If you want to turn a "shit hole" into nice use T&G boards. I did and ended up with this

There are several more pictures there showing how I built it. Not cheap but I enjoyed building it and have something that should last many years. The window was the only salvaged item and that came from the house when we extended so matches nicely.

Mike

[Gazz]

bloimey, wish i had room to build something like that in the garden, well i do, but there wouldent be much garden left.

had thought about T&G boards, but dismissed them on cost grounds, tho i could make scaffold planks into T&G with a bit of work on the router table,

measured the thing up today, and it's a bloody odd size, 1.47meters between upright centers, so i need 3 meter long planks to do the end, tho i could use 1.5 meter long boards, just works out more expensive, so for cost things scaffold planks are looking best, just needs a bit of work to make them look nice,

or i could just board it in sterling board, then splodge some really thick paint on them to hide the 'grain' then see how artistic my GF really is, and see if she can paint on T&G lines with knots and shadows showing :)

[geraldthehamster]

this

Excellent. Is the little shed still inside it? ;-)

Cheers Richard

[Muddymike]

No. I left it there as long as possible to minimise the length of time the content had to be stored elsewhere. Having dismantled it I decided it was too good to scrap and cut off the bottom 4 inches which were rotten and re assembled it in the back garden on an old concrete base without the original rotten wooden floor. With the door converted to double doors its now the ride on mower garage. See

Mike

[Chewbacca]

Someone has a lot more house than me..... Banker

[Muddymike]

That's not my house, that's my shed :-) Banker-no. Salesman.

Mike