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Photos courtesy of Richard and his dad
We built a 10′ x 20′ barn style shed documenting the various steps along with construction techniques. Being in my 60’s with the help of my father (almost 90 at the time), I had to look for various techniques in how to utilize and leverage the construction.
After a lot of consideration we decided a 10’ x 20’ shed would fit in the back of our property. It would be tight fit, but it allows 6” from the back fence and 6” from the awning on the back of the house. The main issue in the construction was that I am in my early 60’s and my dad and only helper is almost 90 years old.
We removed an existing shed, thus we had a 10’ x 10’ preexisting pad and with the help of the plans we added the appropriate footings to extend the additional 10’ length. Here are the three 4×4’s necessary to support the shed.
For the floor joist we chose the options of 12” on center to ensure the shed could support any thing we would want to place in the shed.
In order to facilitate the construction, we found a refurbished framing nail gun. We spend a lot of time to ensure the floor was flat and square. The diagonal measurements were within 1/64”. After nailing the floor sheathing down, dad is going around and enduring all the nails were driven completely in. 
In order to facilitate the cutting of the doublers for the roof joists I fabricated a little jig with a 6” square on the cutoff saw. It allowed me to cut all the doublers within an hour.
The jig recommended on the plans were exceptional and greatly facilitated the assembly of the roof joists. In order to strengthen the joints I applied a liberal amount of glue and nailed each doubler in place.
All the roof joist complete! The two end joists are located elsewhere so they wouldn’t get mixed up. We are in the middle of summer and we live in the desert, so the temperatures are reaching 110 degrees and higher. Slows you down considerably.
With two old men who between the two of us couldn’t lift 50 pounds the lifting of the walls was our first challenge. By the way, It was highly recommend that we wrap the shed which we found to be very good idea.
Searching the web we found an idea on how to lift walls with only one person. A trip to Harbor Freight for a boat wench and the hardware store for a pulley, hinges and fittings. The walls went up smoother that I had anticipated.
Yes dad is supervising the lifting of the wall. Notice he walks with a cane.
First wall braced and ready to proceed.
Second wall up. Notice the door at the end and the awning? I had to do some fast calculations and was able to make the door open under the awning. Missing it by 1-1/2”.
There was a problem at this point. My wife decided the world was going to end if I didn’t stop and replace all the carpeting throughout the house with laminate flooring. And as any married person will tell you your life will be miserable if you don’t comply… 6 weeks later we were back on the shed.
Lifting the ends of the roof joist was also a challenge, but I found that by extending the hoist another 5’ I could secure the hoist to the inside wall and place the end roof joist on the outside of the wall I could crank it into position.
Inside view of the roof joists secured. You can see the hoist.
Moved the roof joists inside. Remember I only have 6” clearance on either side of the shed.
Modifying the hoist again, I made a base that allowed me to move it across the floor. Using a plywood sheet carrier I could lift each roof joist up to the proper height. 
From the street behind the property you can see that all the roof rafters are in place and the hoist is ready to be removed.
This was good time to add the ceiling joists for the loft. It also stabilized the walls and removed any bow down the length.
Time for the roof sheathing. Remember the 6” clearance and it took all are strength to even move the sheet of sheathing? Well we attached the boat wench to the back side of the roof rafters and hoisted each panel into place. You can see the boat wench here.
The last row of roof sheathing proved exceptionally challenging.
Notice the block on the side? I fastened the boat wench to the other side of the shed and ran the cable over the top and lifted the panels up, then lowered them on the blocks. This allowed me to secure the roof sheathing.
Here is the boat wench to hoist the last row of roof sheathing.
The shed is complete less some trim boards on the edges. Which was added later.
I left the last 6’ of the loft open for access, but found lifting stuff up was difficult so I reinforced the roof joist and added an elevator. Makes it easy to list stuff up to the loft. The elevator operates off a ½” drive drill motor.More photo galleries
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