Tips for your first shed build that I wish someone had told me

I did a small garage build last year and I had a similar experiance with the floor squaring. Getting those diagonals matched before attaching anything else really saved me time. I ussually put all the layout markings on the bottom plate first, but I also always use a pencil to lightly mark the studs on the top plate as I go. That way, if I notice a shift later when I'm attaching the roof to the wall framing, I can quickly see which stud is off without having to pull the whole thing apart to find the mistake. I worked with 2x4 framing and used standard lumber from my local yard. The bracing you mentioned is definatly critical, expecially when the walls are alredy up but haven't been tied to the roof trusses yet. Sometimes just using the nails to hold the corners together isn't enough to keep the geometry rigid until the whole box is closed. My experience taught me that small adjustments made while the walls are still sitting on the floor are much easier than trying to fix them once the roof is pulling everything into a permanent position. It just makes the whole process much smoother.

One thing I'd add for the young fella, sort your lumber by crown before you build any walls. On my last shed I spent almost an hour picking through the pile and marking the top of every stud with a little arrow, but it paid off becasue the walls came out dead flat instead of wavy. Also think about where your door goes early on. I once framed a shed with the door on the downhill side of the yard and the customer made me move it, which meant cutting the bottom plate after the fact. Not fun.

Agree with the crown sorting tip, that one bit me on my first deck build. I just grabbed studs off the pile as needed and ended up with a rim that looked like a rollercoaster. Now I snap a chalk line on my sawhorses and hold each stud against it to check the bow before it goes anywhere. Takes five minutes and saves a whole day of shimming later.