Potting shed experience?

I'm planning to build a new potting shed for my plot in our local community garden. Has anyone built their own shed before? I am planning on a 4x6 shed with a gable roof with an attached potting table. On one half of the roof I want to use plastic roofing panel with overhang over the attached table. Any suggestions for an inexpensive source of plastic roofing? Advice?

Well, no experience here, but, you might check salvage stores or Habitat for Humanity stores for any bits of roofing material. I really like 'Ondura' it comes in about 4 x 8 sheets, it's not plastic, but a rubber/tar material. It's about $14 dollars per sheet, new here, at Lowes. Hope you can find something that will work.
Jo

And it is save to collect the water runoff. I have it on the house in the Philippines.

Kay

Healing Garden wrote:I'm planning to build a new potting shed for my plot in our local community garden. Has anyone built their own shed before? I am planning on a 4x6 shed with a gable roof with an attached potting table. On one half of the roof I want to use plastic roofing panel with overhang over the attached table. Any suggestions for an inexpensive source of plastic roofing? Advice?

Steal if from next doors shed !

Seriously ...

Is it possible to face the front of the potting shed towards the sun and slope the window/ front backwards by say a foot in total & having the door at the side
You could then get away with a single plane roof rather than two planes so it should be a bit cheaper .

There is a transparent corrugated sheet plastic available which also matches in with a solid corrugated profile .

My experience of using a transparent panel in a roof that gets high sun is that the shed gets absolutly roasting , so much so that I had to cover the panel and eventually painted it over on the inside with an expanding foam spray to insulate it and me from the suns heat.

You'd also have a sunny inside shelf to work at and if able would be able to use that shelf as a seed germination bench , covering the wondow in fleece cloth to stop it getting too hot on really sunny days.
You would also have the opportunity of making the bench shelf say 18 inches wide and still having room on the rear wall to slip in three or four rows of full length 4 inch wide shelving which is quite useful for storing loads of plant pots . I'll draw one and put the picture up in a few minutes

See if you can make sense of these sketches


It could be made of a 2 x 2 frame with sheets of thin weather proof ply screwed to it and the roof covered with a water proof membrane such as some long life pond liner.

Thank you all for the advice. I looked up ReStore and actually have one not too far from me so will check it out ASAP. Was planning on one side of the roof being transparent and the other side holding my roof top garden bed. Would like to include a rain barrel for run off from the transparent side. Plantoid thank you so much for all your advice and drawings. I originally planned on something similar to what you drew with the transparent roof over the potting table being hinged so it could be lifted up to allow work at the table. I've never framed a building before so in looking to keep it simple I found this EZFrame kit (EZ Frame) that allows for straight edge cuts which would make the whole process much easier for a first timer. The door would be on the short edge and along the long side I would attach the potting bench and shelves to the outside. The interior of the shed I'm hoping to be relatively water/rodent proof. I hadn't thought of the shed getting too hot with the transparent roof. Thanks for that experience Plantoid. I'll install a venting window. I like the idea that the shed, if there is enough light, could have some greenhouse benefit for acclimating transplants. I really don't have a ton of resources for this project so may just use greenhouse plastic for the roof and then upgrade to polycarb later. I'd love to use cedar for the siding but not sure it's in the budget. Thanks again.

This is what I plan for one half of the roof and the other side will be greenhouse plastic or polycarb:


Went to ReStore and found a 4x4 pegboard for $5. They didn't have much in the way of lumber but did have a number of interior doors for cheap. Wondering if I could use the doors painted with exterior paint as siding? The panels would look something like this:



Any thoughts on the door idea? I think it's a bit intrusive aesthetically and would prefer cedar siding but cost of the siding would be over $200 and the doors will be less than $50.

I love the raised panel doors and can see interesting garden decor painted in the depression.

Kay

It wouldn't take me too long to get claustrophobic in such a tiny shed.

I use a portion of my greenhouse as a potting shed - or just as a nice place to go and read in the dead of winter, when the sun is shining. Mine is arranged so the sun is at my back - although it's diffused light, so it doesn't make shadows that would make reading difficult.

It's kinda nice to relax or work in a t-shirt when the temperature outside is in the fifties.