Heartland DIY 8' x 10' Basic storage/lawn shed

by Sarah Covington
(Memphis, Tennessee)

I wanted a simple and easy shed. My original intention was to by something very small and compact by Rubbermaid or it's equivalent. I never expected to end up buying a shed made out of wood that required construction. I'm not a handy gal and without the help of my brother this would have been an almost impossible feat. The shed that I ended up purchasing for size reasons ended up being a basic but durable DIY Heartland 8' x 10' wood shed.

My Heartland shed has gotten more use and served as a solution for so many of my problems that were outdoor related. Putting it together with the help of my brother seemed like a piece of cake. I can't say that I honestly enjoyed helping on the task, but I did learn a few basic things like handling screws properly and even building a shed! If I had looked over the instructions myself I would have been lost. My brother showed me the stops and once we walked through them and examined of all the supplies everything seemed to flow together.

The walls themselves were already as they were, so assembling was needed on that. When it came to putting in all the screws, nuts, bolts and nails everything for the most part fit right in their designated places. As I mentioned everything was came precut, even the roof. We did have to put some extra care when it came to the roof, window and bottom foundation. We nailed down the rood and added some insulation underneath. The window was a little tricky because it required some measuring and getting the glass in without breaking it. The foundation of the shed on the bottom is held together by the precut floor base that it came with. My brother suggest that we cement the out edge of the base and use four pillar blocks to hold up the shed which distributes the weight evenly.


I use my shed for storage purposes only. I also have my walking lawn mower in there. It is a great place to keep all of my outdoor equipment out of sight and most importantly out of the rain. Overall the durability of the shed is exceptional. When it rains really hard, there have been minor leaks through the roof. That is something that I plan on having my brother look at and maybe including another layer of insulation under the roof which won't be that hard. Shed's like mine are quite common when it comes to basic wood shed's.

I would definitely recommend getting a wood shed over an aluminum shed any day and if you have a lot of outdoor items, you should probably avoid getting ones of those rubber ones too.