Two storey shed

by Kim
(Canada)

Hi John, I’m building a two storey 8x10 shed. Walls are 7'6" with a hip roof. Would like to put a second level loft type floor across the entire area. Not sure what is needed or where to place supports.

Thanks in advance for your help

Kim

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starstarstarstarstar 		Great step by step photos
by: John

Hi Lindsay,

Thanks for your comment and also your suggestion regarding another form for a two storey shed. The shed building pictures that you sent through are very informative and give a good idea of how your shed building project went.

Your duaghter should be very pleased with the result.

Kind regards

John
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starstarstarstarstar 		My two storey shed
by: Lindsay Richards

I built a two storey shed for my daughter.

I built the sidewalls 12 feet tall and once erected put in a ceiling/floor at 8 feet. This left 4 feet on the sides and I built a ridge pole at 8 feet in the center. This gave a 2nd story room that was 4 feet tall on the sides and 8 feet tall at the center.

It is used for storage and is perfect. The 2nd story is accessed by a trap door and built in ladder in one corner and a double barn style door on one end.

It was a fun project and has been very useful. It has a shop in the bottom and lots of storage on the top now. It is dry and secure.

See lots of photos at link below:

http://www.linandnancy.com/shed.html
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starstarstarstarstar 		Two storey shed tips
by: John

Hi Kim,

From what I understand you want to build a single story shed and make the most of the roof space by putting a floor across the whole of the roof space to create a loft. This is a great idea to maximise the amount of storage that you can achieve for a given shed size.

The best type of shed to maximise this type of space is the gambrel shed, followed by the gable shed. The advantage of the Gambrel shed is that the side slopes are a lot steeper than the main roof and so you get a lot more usable space in the roof.

The supports for the loft space are achieved by spanning a timber from wall to wall (no internal supports are required). You need to make sure that the timbers that you use for the floor are sufficient to support whatever you propose to store in the loft.

Most gable sheds have a tie across at eaves level anyway, so for your design the size of this will have to be increased so that it can support the material that you propose to store up there.

Gambrel sheds come in a high and a low roof variety. The low roof variety generally don’t have much roof storage whereas the high roof variety have almost the same volume of space downstairs as up.

The other matter to consider is how you get access to the roof space, you can have internal and external access.

For a small shed such as you propose then for internal access it may be best to have the access hatch in the centre of the shed so that as you climb up into the loft you have relatively equal access to all areas. If the hatch was at one end then you could have to climb over mountains of stuff to get to an item stored at the other end.

External access to the roof space is generally used when you want to use the loft space for storing long items such as lengths of wood or perhaps a canoe. A door is created in the end of the roof space so that it can be opened and items put in and unloaded as you wish.

I hope that the above is helpful, please let me know how you get on.

Kind regards

John

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