One of the things I enjoy most in life is having everything on hand. Being organized and tidy has been a way of life for me since my earlier years. My father always said that a tidy man is a prepared man. And as time went by, I understood the true meaning of these words. Having everything you need in a neat and tidy manner, gives you the advantage of knowing where to look for something when you need it.

It might not seem like a big deal, but having a place where you can store all of you tools, the lawn mower and other such equipment not only saves up space in your house and backyard, but also gives you the advantage of not looking through half the house for “that screwdriver”. I know you can relate to this: having so many tools that you forgot where you put some of them and then waste half an afternoon looking for them.

In order to fix this small issue I built a shade in the backyard. I know I could have just bought one, but seriously, a 10’x10′ shed at a local big box home improvement store costs more than $ 2300. And I know there are many DIY projects of building sheds out there, but most of them rank up a pretty high cost.

The beauty of the shed that I’ll be showing you is that it can, virtually, cost you ZERO dollars. Why? because the main building material are pallets. If you are lucky you might find these near companies that leave them on the curb when they have no more use for them. You might even go ask some of you local businesses that use pallets if they can spare a few or to let you know when they throw out the ones they don’t need. That’s how I ended up with the pallets for my shed.

Of course if you don’t have some of the tools and other things needed, the cost won’t be 0. But I’ll guarantee it will be low.

So here’s what you need to build this shed:

Tools Needed:

– Cordless drill/driver – drill holes / drive screws -Link –

– Phillips heads for screws

– a 14″ long 5/8″ dill bit – for drilling all-thread bolt holes

– Circular saw

– Oscillating tool – used to cut the all-thread – Link –

– level (the bigger the better)

– step ladder

– 2 pair of pliers

– tape measure

Materials:

– Dozens of pallets

– 2 – 5 foot lengths of 5/8″ all-thread – Link –

– about a pound of nuts and washers to go with the all-thread

– 5 pounds of 1-1/2 in screws

– 2 pounds of 3 in screws

– assorted door hardware as you like

– 6 – 12×2 ft roofing tin – Link –

– 1 – 4×8 sheet of chipboard

Step 1: Building The Base

Leveled out a 10′ square area by means of digging into the ground and elevating with cinder blocks. Start level and square to keep your building true and plumb later on. Once you prepared the site, attach the first two 4’6 pallets to ground contact rated 10′ 2×4’s using the 3′ screws. This will become the first corner of the shed. The walls are attached to each other by lining them up square, then drilling through with the long 5/8’s drill bit. Measured and cut a piece of all thread a couple inches longer than each hole needed. Bolt the pallets together top, bottom and center using the nuts and washes. I know it may seem like overkill, but all-thread is extremely cheap and better safe than sorry!

Step 2: Work Your Way Around & Up The Sides

Add another pallet to the back using screws on the bottom and all-thread bolts on the sides. then do the same on the right side. Put up the back left corner using screws on the bottom, but use some pallet top boards to attach this side piece to the back wall. These were the last of the 4’x6′ pallets.

Add smaller, regular sized pallets to complete the side walls. Again, use screw to attach the pallets to the ground contact lumber, and all-thread bolts to attach the pallets to each other.

Step 3: The Front

Seeing as I used up the last of the pallets on the back and sides, I didn’t have any for the front. But luckily I acquired some long skinny pallets form a local business. There aren’t as stout as the 4’x6′ used for the back walls, so you’ll need to use the lumber that would frame the doorway to add structural integrity. Add some 12′ 2×4’s front to back to support a temporary plastic roof and frame it in the doorway. The plastic roof is not really necessary if you don’t expect any rain or bad weather.

Step 4: The door and roof

You can build a couple of doors out of chip board and pallet tops, then hung them. For the roof, I replaced the temporary plastic roof with 7 – 12′ 2×4’s and 6 – 12 foot long sheets of corrugated tin. The shed is about 8 feet tall in the front, and about 6 feet tall in the back, so there’s plenty of slant for the rain to run off.

Truth to be told this could be the most expensive step if you don’t have some tin on hand. I didn’t have to spend any kind of money because I had some tin laying around in the back yard. Of course you could use other materials for the roof if you have plenty on hand.

Step 5 : Finishing touches

I left some windows spaces in the front blank in order to install some sort of windows later on. Till then I just covered the holes up with some from plastic florescent light covers.

Cover the “skeleton” of the shed with pallet tops. First the front, then the back and sides. After this you can either leave it as it is, or paint it.

With that the shed is finished and you can do the inside as you please.

It’s a simple and very cheap project that will give you the means of storing all your tools in one place.

How would you personalize this shed? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.