[.ca] Building Great Sheds: Creative Ideas for Simple Structures (ISBN 1579903851)

Great for ideas:
Pluses to this book: Photos Plenty of them on sheds set in backyards everywhere. For the most part, these are not your typical home improvement store shed. Metal roofs, old barn board, stone, earth and more are combined to create interesting designs. Ideas Because of the numerous photos you are only limited by your imagination and budget when the time comes to your own little shed retreat. I picked up this book for just this reason. As I get ready to build a shed for a customer I wanted to create a unique shed so I have been browsing many shed books for inspiration. Details The book offers a step-by-step detail plan for two sheds. From these sheds you are given other ideas to expand on the main plans to create several other sheds. Plans There are plans included in the back of the book. Material list. For the basic sheds you are given a shopping list of materials needed to construct the shed. Minuses to this book: Details This is a catch 22. Description of tools and supplies will be of no use for someone with a little background in construction. The details are helpful however they are written as if you have never built anything before. Many people will find this helpful but if you have built something you will be able to skim through these details and move forward. (this is not a big minus) Overall I enjoyed borrowing this book, but for my carpentry skill level...carpenter by trade, it is not one I will add to my personal collection. I would suggest Joseph Truini's Building a Shed. (Check out my 5 star review on Truini's book for more information.)

Not a 5 star book.:
I can't see why other rated this book 5 stars. Maybe they just looked at the pictures because it does have nice pictures of various old sheds. The book contains instructions to build one shed. They are very detailed. Too bad they are hard to follow and in some cases just plain wrong. For instance, on page 77, step 68, the author says to set your circular saw to a 45 degree angle and cut a 12' 2X4 into 6 pieces 3' long. This will result in bevel cuts, not the desired angle cuts. The instructions are written in such a way that you expected to follow them blindly without deviation. Also it is difficult to match up the relavant photos with the instructions. My bigest gripe is the drawings in the appendix. They used brown lines on tan paper with brown stipple. This makes them so hard to read they are almost useless. The full uselessness is rendered by the appendex drawings being incomplete and poorly ordered.

My Choice:
I checked this book out from the library, along with several others. This is the one I just had to buy. The sheds are creative and the instructions give me confidence to complete my project.

Great for the Do-It-Yourselfer!:
An excellent manual if you want to build your own shed, it has all the things from start to finish. Great ideas, and the instructions are clear and concise, and well thought out! I highly recommend this book!

Excellent guide, great ideas:
There are tons of books out that purport to guide someone through a do-it-yourself project. Many of them are poorly organized, erratically laid out or conceived and incompletely documented. This one shines, for a variety of reasons. The writing is clear and the instructions are designed to foster confidence, even for the beginner. The great thing is that the ideas allow you to consider other ideas, add your own creativity. Truscott has published a handful of craft/do it yourself guides through Lark Books. Highly recommended.