Alternatives

Still at a very early stage with the new shed – working out a basic way forward, and if you think it is frustrating not to have more progress by now from your perspective, imagine it from mine!

I had a friend around on Saturday as we chewed over a few ideas, and looking at what may be an alternative to the American barn (commercial) design.

After discussing the concepts through, I have since measured the back yard as accurately as I can, then plotted it all in Illustrator.  What is interesting, is I didn’t realise that the angled fenceline is pretty much right on 45^o. This may or may not make any more difference – it does mean that it is pretty much a given to have the shed square to the house.

So drawn to scale, there is the 2m easement on the boundary.  Shed A is the earlier American Barn design, with a floor area of 48m²

Shed B is an alternate floor area we discussed, maximising the land use, and has a floor area of 50m².  Obviously, by utilising every square cm of the back of the property, it doesn’t protrude anywhere near as far into the garden.  For a sense of scale, the blue shed (B) has 2 walls which are 10m long.

Some of the other ideas we kicked around included not going with a slab, and instead utilising a wooden floor.  This has a number of advantages, including cost, insulation, dropped chisels, overall ambiance.  A lot of insulation, with the idea of dropping the internal volume down to around 40dB externally.

No idea about the cost at this stage – would have to design the whole thing and measure each to estimate cost.  It would be a timber and cement sheet construction, with insulation on the inside, and a timber front face (radial sawn), and the other sides rendered.

So where to from here?  Another chat to the council – I need to work out where the plumbing etc on the property.  I need to know the depth of the piles required, especially on the edge of the easement.  I need to know how close to the fenceline I can get.

Painfully slow process.