Keter 10x8 Shed

I wanted to buy a shed the moment I bought my house. However, there were always more important things coming up and my things were scattered around the backyard and stuffed in cabinets. Not long ago, I found this incredible deal at HomeDeport - a 10x8 resin shed for $699. I checked around and sheds like this one were sold for over $1000. I had to act and act quickly.

I already had a concrete slab in my backyard but I really wanted to install a gazebo on that slab or a she-shed. I wanted to build another slab for the shed nearby, I have made the plans for the new area  already and have estimated the cost (around $500) but this would require at least a week or two to build with my schedule and was not ready for this additional expense this month. So, I decided to buy the shed, install it on the existing slab and move it (really?!) later on to the new area.

The shed arrived one evening packaged in four big boxes, wrapped together. The next day I pressure washed the concrete slab and waited for it to completely dry. I am in California, temperatures are in high 60s, low 70s (it's February) and the slab was dry the next day.

I started with the floor, of course. I followed the instructions and I found it a little bit confusing. I was not able to get the panels marked as right on the right side and the ones marked as left on the left side. I ended up with the following 

LF CF RF

RF CF LF

Probably, I spent a little too much time pondering about that but since this was the foundation I wanted to get it right. I screwed the provided screws to secure the floor panels and I found them to be a little bit too long, probably about 1/10". They were touching the concrete slab and walking on the panels was awkward. So, I unscrewed them a bit.

The existing concrete slab dimensions are 14'x12'. There's a big slab measuring 9'x14' and a small one in front of it measuring 3'x14'. I guess there was a previous structure on the bigger one as there were some holes and the second one was added a little bit later. I centered the floor and tried to cover as many of the previous holes as possible. This left about a foot in the back, which I think will work great as I will be able to get behind the shed if I need to. I have noticed there was dirt between the slab and the neighbor's fence, so I put some bricks to try to stop or limit the dirt getting to the shed.

Then the fun part began. I started putting the wall panels up. It was a little tricky putting the corner brackets on, the ones that hold the corner panels together, but the rest was pretty easy. I did it myself without help from other people. Then the mosquitoes came out (again it's February), they were "sassy" and I decided to call it a day. 

The next morning, I installed the shelving support. I thought it would be easier but I stumbled into a few things, that I would like to share. First my power drill was dead and I had to screw everything by hand. Then, there was some plastic that was not cut through by the factory and prevented the rails to fit exactly. Again, not a big deal but still a nuisance. The instructions explicitly say not to use a box cutter (utility knife) but I have to. And of course, it's easier to be done when the panels are on the ground and not up, so make sure you remove any excessive plastic. At some point I broke one of the screw holes, again not sure how this has happened as I was not using a power tool. 

The excessive plastic and broken screw made me remove the rails a few times, which slowed me down. Anyways, the shelving was installed within the hour. 

In the afternoon, I worked on the roof. Instructions were pretty straightforward. I was confused on how to install the sky light plug. But when I put the two sky light panels next to each other, it was clear that it has to be in the middle between the two. For reference, the plug is the gray plastic at the middle of the skylight.

I got help lifting and putting the roof support up. 

Then I assembled the roof gables. And again, I came across some excessive plastic. Below is the picture of a hole that is almost closed and I had to open it with a utility knife. The first hole (no picture unfortunately) was completely covered by plastic. I spent a lot of time pushing and trying to get the two pieces together unsuccessfully before I noticed the closed opening.

Putting the front gable was really easy. The rear one was a little bit tricky as one of the metal rails has to go through the gable. However, I was able to do this myself without additional help. I used the installed roof support to balance the gable when needed. Then I fastened the gables with the plastic screws and checked the instructions for next steps. OMG, I noticed I have forgotten the washers, both on bottom and top plastic screws. Ouch. Since I don't know anything about sheds, I figured out if they should be there they better be there. So, I unscrewed all the plastic screws and screwed them back on together with the washers. At this point, I decided to stop and continue the next day.

Next day, I woke up early in the morning and installed the doors. Instructions said I needed a helper for the roof panels so I skipped this step for later. There was so much excessive plastic that it killed all the fun. There is supposed to be a hole to where the utility knife points . 

Maybe a stronger person can push the hinge through the plastic but not me, so I cut the holes to make my life easier. Anyways, the doors got installed an the shed looks almost finished.

I slid the roof panels myself and indeed i needed someone to push them while I was aligning them to the sky light. My helper came and then the frustrating part began. The panels will not go inside the sky light, no matter what. The whole shed was twisting but the panels stayed about an inch from the sky light. At that point, I gave up and decided to take my daughter out and deal with this later. 

In the afternoon, I decided to complete the last step of the instructions and install some decorative plugs. Then I got the idea that maybe if I used a hammer and banged on the roof panels from the outside I could get them moving. I was right. I got some movement and this helped me see where the obstructions were. There weren't any with the center roof panels, they were just very difficult to slide up. However, the end panels were obstructed by the side of the sky light panel. The panels were supposed to get inside the white chevron-shaped plastic and they were hitting its edge. After I corrected this, the roof panels "clicked" to the sky light. 

I was so glad with  my decision to leave some space between the shed and the fence as it allowed me to climb up and adjust the side of the sky light to go around the roof panels. Quite a task. 

Then I started installing the decorative plugs, all 134 of them. Again, there was a lot of excessive plastic that i had to remove and also the holes on the doors are too wide and the plugs are kind of loose. I installed about 3/4 of them and decided to call it a day.

Overall, it is a nice shed, especially for the money. It's probably not as stable as a wooden one but it will be perfect for storage. I need to buy some shelving and start with moving my things inside. 

During the whole process I was thinking about how I am going to move the shed if I had to. It won't be easy and  it won't be fun but I am sure I'll figure it out when the time comes.