At this point in our marriage, Ben is not phased by the things that come out of my mouth or the thoughts that stir around in my head. When we tackle projects together, Ben, the engineer, is often in Step 1 determining feasibility of the project and I am already at the end goal and working my way back through the steps. I do budgeting and financial analysis for a living so I am often focused on long term strategy while simultaneously monitoring the impact of every day decisions. I spend a lot of time devising the plan and am often looking to the future to identify any roadblocks to success. Our very different ways of thinking about projects can sometimes cause very interesting communication challenges too because we’re not even thinking about the same step of the project at any given point.
In the case of our goats and goat pastures my thinking in reverse of what the end goal would/should look like has saved us some future labor (and $$) which I’m sure Ben will thank me for later. We didn’t want to fence all of the property at once (also fencing can be very expensive) and we still need to cut some trees and clear undergrowth in other areas. We also have a whole section of the property that has major drainage issues and is basically a bog—that will most likely require some grading before we add fencing. We fenced off the middle section of what will become three goat pastures. We plan on rotating our goat herd across multiple pastures so naturally when planning for a goat shed I told Ben I wanted it to be mobile. I envisioned us being able pull it from one field to another as we moved the weed eater crew so that they will always have shelter and we didn’t need to construct three goat shelters—see? I told you Ben would thank me!
Materials
- 4×4 posts (base)
- 2×4 boards (frame)
- 8″ pneumatic heavy duty swivel casters
- LP SmartSide Strand Panel Siding 48″ x 96″
- SunTuf Polycarbonate Corrugated Roof Panels 26″ x 12 ft
- 3″ construction screws (starbit head)
- 2 hitch rings (for towing from location to location)
Build Out Steps(& Missteps)by Ben
Step 1. Determine the size shed you want to build. We made an 8′ x 8′ base with a 6′ tall front sloping down to 4′ in the back. We chose the dimensions mostly to simplify the material selection and the measurements and with a sloped roof to ensure proper water runoff.
Step 2. Cut foundations boards to the correct length. Since we chose an 8’x8′ base, we only had to cut two of the foundation boards. We used 4×4 posts as the foundation. Measure all the boards before cutting, as an 8′ board may be slightly longer than 96″ and a 4×4 is not four inches wide (the board was four inches before it was dried and processed at the lumber mill).
Step 3. We chose to do butt joints instead of miter corners, which made the measuring and cutting much simpler. Place two of the 4x4s parallel to each other, then place the other two boards on the inside. We screwed these together first. You may notice that it is really hard to find screws that long without going into the specialty hardware section and paying a lot for a little. We drilled pilot holes about two inches into the ends of each board that were large enough to fit the entire screw into as well as the driver bit holder. This way we were able to keep the materials list smaller and use what we had on hand.
Step 4. Make angle braces using 2x4s. The screws through the end will not be enough to handle the stress on being pulled and moved, so the foundation needs additional support. You could use 4x4s for the angle, but we always have some scrap 2×4 material, so we doubled up each corner with 2x4s. To make the angle braces, you will need to cut each 2×4 into 45 degree cuts on both ends in opposing slants. If you know what you are doing, you can make the measurements and just make the cuts with a miter saw or a circular saw. If you are like me, the cheater’s way is to lay the 2×4 over the 4×4 foundation and make a mark on the 2×4 using the 4×4 as the guide. This will give you the angle of the cut on both sides and help you from having a mental lapse and cutting the wrong 45 degree on one side–ask me how I know!
Step 5. Attach the angle braces to the 4×4 foundation using screws or nails (I prefer screws, they have a better hold and its harder to whack your thumb with a drill/driver). If you made perfect 45 degree angle cuts on your angle braces, but have a small gap anywhere between the 2×4 and the 4×4, that means your foundation is not completely square. You mostly likely will not end up with a completely square foundation because of the posts, but you should adjust as much as possible to get the structure as square as you can (trust me, I didn’t and regretted it at the end).
Step 6. Attach the wheels to the 4×4 foundation at the corners. If you decide to use swiveling casters like we did, make sure they are free spinning before you flip over the foundation. You may need an extra set of hands to flip over the foundation, it is a bit heavy and a little awkward to handle.
Step 7. Time to make the walls! Start by building out the corner vertical boards. We used 2x4s for this, but you want it be extra solid you could use 4x4s. Again, I took the fast route to make the measurements simple and attached the boards to the outside of the foundation and aligned them with the bottom of the 4×4 supports of the base. This made the cut for the vertical board easier, but made for a small headache later. (for clarification: the boards should have measured to the top of the 4×4 base otherwise you end up with additional inches in depth or width)
Step 8. Attach a header board for the side walls using a 2×4. If everything went according to plan, in our example, this board was 8′ matching the post foundation. After doing the header for the two side walls, measure out the header for the back wall. This should also match the length of the cut foundation board beneath, in our case ~7.5′.
Step 9. Measure out the studs for the side and back walls. You can do a measurement, but the shortcut way is to place the 2×4 on the foundation board and make a mark on the 2×4 and the bottom of the header and that will give you your cut. Space out the studs about every two feet. If you are a better planner than me, you will measure it out to make sure one of the studs will be at seam of the siding. If you are like me, you will have to go back and add a 2×4 later to make the seams stay down.
Step 10. Attach 2x4s from the front header to the back header spacing them about 2 feet apart. You can reduce your spacing and add more boards for a place to adhere the roof material or you can opt to add additional boards to run parallel to the front and back. We opted to add 1x4s to run parallel to the front and back, spacing those about 2 feet apart.
Step 11. Measure the cuts for the siding. I chose to hold up the siding to the framed out walls and draw the template to make the cuts rather than measuring and making sure I had good angles and straight lines. It really help to have an extra set of hands on this one! If you are doing a solo build, you can use some scrap material to hold the siding in place while you draw the template, but from experience on this one, if you can get help, use it.
Step 12. Using a circular saw or a jig saw (circle saw is much faster, but a little less fine of a cut), cut your siding to the lines you drew for your template.
Step 13. Adhere the siding panels to the framed out shed. I used a pneumatic nailer and opted for finishing brads and just used a ton of them. Not the best choice, but it has worked so far. I did not want to use bigger nails or screws as we opted for the thinner OSB panels and I didn’t want to have a big nail or screw head breaking up the vertical line pattern of the siding.
Step 14. Almost there! Attaching the panels was the moment of truth of how well you made your cuts and how square your building is. You if you are like me, then you spend the next twenty minutes thinking about how you are going to do better the next time about making sure things are square. Remember when I said I regretted attaching the vertical corners to the outside of the board, well that’s because I didn’t think about it making the shed about 99″ instead of the 8 foot (96″) that I had planned on. So, if you are like me, you can add decorative 1×4 or 1x6s to the back corners to cover up any gaps in the siding.
Step 15. Attach the roofing material to the roof cross members. You can use regular screws or nails, but it is better to use the screws made for this material that have a small washer with a rubber gasket on the bottom to prevent moisture from getting into the screw holes.
Step 16. Attach the hitch rings to the front foundation board with heavy duty screws of your choice. We chose to place the rings equidistant in the front to optimally distribute the torque when towing the shed from location to location.
Step 17. Finally finished and ready for use (unless your wife wants to paint it and add Craftsman styled trim in which case the Mobile Goat Shed is finished for now)
