This is the fun part!
This took about 1.5 days on my own. It’s good fun! (If you are concerned about how close the cladding goes to the floor, I share your concern but the pictures are a bit misleading: the geotextile is bunched up and the shed is at least 100mm above ground level, probably 200mm at the left hand side.
It’s not finished yet- I had to get as much on as I could before the weather changed so focused on getting as much of the easy stuff on as possible rather than completely finishing each wall. The cladding is 6/22mm treated feather edge, 150mm deep. I allowed a 30mm overlap. I didn’t want feather edge. I wanted loglap. Or, at least, shiplap. And when budget dictated that feather edge was my only option, I promised myself I would get the chunkiest stuff I could. But sadly when it came to it, the fact that we have a baby due any minute meant that I really had to cut back and went for the cheapest, thinnest feather edge. However I was actually pleasantly surprised by the stuff that was delivered – it does feel reasonably chunky, and I really love the appearance of the feather edge and will likely use it (albeit thicker stuff) for the workshop. I WILL be using more expensive stuff for the workshop, but this was a case of spending £200 to get the job done, or £400 to do it was I wanted it done and regretting the over-spend.
The little jig I made to space the boards (you can see it hanging on the broken old fence on the right hand side in the second pic) uses two timbers of different depth, so it will give different spacing if used one way up as opposed to the other! Basic error, and I think this explains the rather irritating difference between the board spacing on the front face, and the left side wall. Bugger.
Some other things to note: the board above the door and the window on the front walls are put there as full boards for convenience. This is not ideal, but I was due heavy rain and had 3 hours to clad the front, back and right hand side walls or risk having it all getting drenched. Perfect is the enemy of done, and I am perversely quite proud of myself for choosing to live with this very visible imperfection in favour of getting the job done in the time I had. With a baby arriving in the next few weeks and all of my tools in its room, getting the job done is the main aim now!
And while I am blowing my own trumpet: when designing this, I obsessed over having 2.4m x 1.8m external walls to make cladding easier. The 2.4 dimension changed by a few cm for reasons that I won’t go in to (and in any case it transpires that my supplier of the cladding – the excellent Beaumont Forest – don’t stock 2.4m anyway). However I did have 1.8m side walls and the supplier did supply 1.8m cladding, so I was delighted when I didn’t have to cut a single 1.8m board; every one of them fitted by pressure with no holding needed when fitting (some required a gentle tap with a hammer to get them in) which means that my walls, and the boards, must have been accurate to within a mm or so, all the way up. As an aside, where I did cut boards for the other walls I cut them generally a mm too wide so that I did have to hammer them in a bit, but the boards were still a bit wet from the recent rain so I figure they can only shrink.
Fitting them was generally easy, but tricky for the back wall (which is up against a hedge). I used the jig, and a 25mm nail from the nail gun/stapler to temporarily fix them, and then used a hammer and bright nails to fix them properly (one nail at each batten). I trusted my jig, but on every other board I used a spirit level to check the level of the bottom of the board as this would be the visible bit. Generally it was all OK with just the jig, but a few needed adjusting. I put the nails high on the boards so that they would be covered by the overlap. Not sure if this is right – time (or someone who knows what they are talking about) will tell. Also not sure if I used the right nails. I used lost head bright nails, but wondering if I should have used galvanised nails.
Fixing the boards was manageable on my own but tricky for the longer boards, and they were only 2.4m. This will be a two-man job for the workshop where I am working with boards twice that length.
You will also note that the wood has not been painted. It was wet when it arrived and it has been raining since. We had a few days of dry weather so they had mostly dried by the time I fixed them, but sadly not dry enough to paint. And getting hold of Barn Paint was a bit of a problem too. The local supplier told me that they stock loads of the stuff, and that they sell all colours. Both of which are true, but what he really means is that they stock loads of white and black, and they do sell any colour but only after ordering it in specially. Oh well. Another example of lack of research and over-reliance on just-in-time ordering. And I actually really like the appearance of the treated timber.
Lessons learnt for the workshop:
1) With the jig, have an obvious “top” and “bottom” to avoid the error made on the shed. And if I am working alone: make two, and temporarily fix one to the wall in place, to free up hands to work with the rest of the board.
2) Nailing was easy and quick (if a little noisy). Contrary to expectations, no need to hire a paslode to speed things up. But make sure I have the right nails – and two hammers. It is a two-man job for the workshop, so both should be hammering.
3) Have lots of end grain preservative ready. I have been splashing it everywhere whenever I cut anything, and in particular for the cladding.
4) Don’t over-order! I’ve got maybe 50m of leftover full boards left, which is crazy. I am not a very good quantity surveyor.
5) Consider using steel sheeting for the back walls if I am using it for the roof. Probably cheaper (in particular as I want to clad the workshop in thicker feather edge, or shiplap/loglap), probably quicker and probably more resilient which is particularly important as access to the back of the workshop will be very difficult.
6) Order the timber long in advance; let it dry; then paint. And then fix. I will end up painting the shed when finished and the end result will be poorer than giving myself the time to paint it first.
7) I use a laser level all the time in the house. I didn’t use it at all for the cladding. Use it. It would have been really, really useful on the front wall where I was (and will be) running different lines of cladding that are supposed to be exactly in line.
