# Forum Home Renovation The Garden Shed  Framing inside a steel shed

## stevo27

In the process of getting a pretty standard colourbond shed put up. 
After some tips and ideas on the best way to frame a small man cave room in one corner. 
Is 70 x 35 timber ok? 
What about wall girts?
Plumbing and electrical after or before framing? 
Cheers

----------


## Bart1080

Hi Stevo, I've done it using 2 methods:  Small granny flat in the back - 90x35 framing.wall studs.  Drilled, plugged and screwed to the concrete floor (that had plastic membrane layed before the concrete pour.  Lined the inside with gyprock and lined the outside wall (inside the shed workshop) with 12mm ply...10mm off the floor.  Electrical and plumbing after framing.Workshop & brother used the same method for his man cave - used yellow tongue flooring fixed length of sheets vertically, 10 mm off the floor so iit doenst soak up any water/spills and just screwed using self tappers directly to the 3 wall girts that were approx 200mm fom the floor, 1500mm & 2500mm.  Works perfectly.  Brother simply painted the sheeting and came up a treat.  re: wiring, plumbing ran all that prior to putting up the sheeting

----------


## METRIX

> In the process of getting a pretty standard colourbond shed put up. 
> After some tips and ideas on the best way to frame a small man cave room in one corner. 
> Is 70 x 35 timber ok? 
> What about wall girts?
> Plumbing and electrical after or before framing? 
> Cheers

  Choose 70x45 over 70x35 price is not much difference, the 35 is a crap to work with as it's to thin and hard to gun into without blowing it apart. 
Wall girt, what is that you are referring to ? 
I assume the shed is on concrete slab, does it have moisture barrier under the slab ?, if not you will need to address this issue before laying any timber frames / carpet etc onto the slab or you will have a moisture problem.
You can apply a negative hydrostatic membrane to the part of the slab you will be man caving, this will stop moisture / mould damaging floor coverings. 
Build the frame with 450 centers for studs, top / bottom plate go in first, or preferable to build the wall frames on the ground first then lift them into position.
Plumbing before framing if you need to cut into the slab, and after to fit the supplies etc, electrical after framing up, plumbing / electrical preferable before putting any linings on the outside walls, makes it easier and quicker to do.

----------


## stevo27

Wall girts are the horizontal pieces between the columns and wall sheets. 
Was hoping there was a way to fix the framing flush with the wall girts instead of on them to cut down on wasted space.

----------


## YoungBolt

If you're making a timber frame, you shouldn't need wall girts to be pinned ontop of the studs. You can just place noggins between the 450mm spaced studs and have them at the heights where the sheets would normally be attached to the girts.  
Are the colourbond sheets from a "flatpack" style shed or are you buying sheets that have not been predilled? If the latter, then you can choose where to put your noggins and have the bracing to your desired heights. I imagine you wouldn't want more than 1-1.2m horizontal spacing. Anything more and I imagine the sheets will flex and rattle in the wind.

----------


## Bart1080

> Hi Stevo, I've done it using 2 methods:  Small granny flat in the back - 90x35 framing.wall studs.  Drilled, plugged and screwed to the concrete floor

  The framing was placed 5mm from the wall girts and where the end of the frame butted up against the shed post, just screwed them into the post. 
How big is your shed?  Mine was 12mx18mx4.2m, so loosing the small amount of space wasn't an issue as we are only talking of 105mm for each section of internal frame against the outside wall.   
One thing I could highly recommend if you head down the "stud" path, is staple sisalation to the back of the frame before your stand it up and fix into position.  Put batts in the frames.  There is a mezzanine above mine with insulation in the mezz floor/granny roof.  The end result is the granny flat is like a fridge in the summer and super warm in the winter.  We lived in it for a couple of years while we built the house.  It might sound strange, it has 2 windows and a glass sliding door (not double glazed)  and it actually performs better (summer & winter) than the 5 year old house we built.

----------


## stevo27

Mine's 11 x 5 x 2.7. 
That method you described with the yellow tongue sounds interesting, reckon you could sheet plaster board over that?

----------


## Bart1080

you could, but wouldn't bother as either natural or with a lick of paint they come up fantastic.  Very hardy and can screw anything you want to them for your "man cave".  Like I said, brother used this method for his man cave/recreation room (pool table etc) and I was gobbed smacked at how well they came up.   
I've used this method out in the workshop for tool boards and implements to hang up on and would have done the same for the granny flat except I needed a frame for the mezzanine floor...and therefore given the frame had to be built, cheaper to do plaster.

----------


## Moondog55

It's not such a hard job, even I managed to get it done.
Like others I just fixed the wall sheeting to the girts

----------


## stevo27

Id like to finish it like a bedroom in a house, which is why I brought up the Plaster board sheets. 
Just something that popped in my head, instead of having the yellow tongue sheets 10mm off the ground for moisture reasons, why not coat the bottom in waterproof membrane and run them hard to the slab?

----------


## David.Elliott

Progress pics of the conversion of a 3 car garage to a studio for SWMBO 70 x 45 frames, covered in 6mm fibre cement and the battens over the joins a'la old cottage... 
As another mentioned, I wish I had thought of Foil wrap for the exterior of my timber frame...

----------


## Bart1080

> Id like to finish it like a bedroom in a house, which is why I brought up the Plaster board sheets. 
> Just something that popped in my head, instead of having the yellow tongue sheets 10mm off the ground for moisture reasons, why not coat the bottom in waterproof membrane and run them hard to the slab?

  Yellow tongue will still look great without the framing.  If you frame, I think you will find it much cheaper to clad in plaster or cement sheet like Stevo.
10mm gap, really just followed what the builders/plasterers done.  Is so any moisture or spills isn't absorbed into the sheet.  Just sit them on 10mm spacers when installing.

----------


## Bart1080

> Progress pics of the conversion of a 3 car garage to

  
Nice Dave, what did you line the roof with?  And how/what did you fix it to?

----------


## David.Elliott

6mm fibre cement, same as the walls.
 I got some 22mm steel tophat, screwed that at right angles at 400mm centres to the purlins(?) and sandwiched some 130mm foil blanket inbetween. Then screwed and glued the FC to the tophat with wafer head screws and construction adhesive.
Here's the last photos I have from a few months ago.   Built  three benches, all with drawers and a "glass" shelf.  
Installed a second hand cottage style stove/pot belly on the weekend to the left of that timber cupboard in the first photo..
Trimmed one end off the bench closest to the camera and installed a 1200 x 600mm LED panel light under laminated glass as a light table.

----------


## frankzhou56

Hey David, 
Love what you've done which I'm looking at doing something similar. In the second picture, how did you attach the timber studs to the metal frame? Was it on the horizontal girts and what did you use? 
Thanks, 
Frank

----------


## frankzhou56

Hey David, 
Love how the shed looks. Looking back at an older photo, how is the stud wall held up? Is it fixed to the horizontal girts and dynabolted to the floor? 
Sorry more the poorly worded question, I'm quite new to this! 
Frank   

> Progress pics of the conversion of a 3 car garage to a studio for SWMBO 70 x 45 frames, covered in 6mm fibre cement and the battens over the joins a'la old cottage... 
> As another mentioned, I wish I had thought of Foil wrap for the exterior of my timber frame...

----------


## doovalacky

Wiring done first 
Couple brackets along top wall girt from off cuts of Z rafters to bring in into same level as the lower beams.
12mm ply screwed direct to the wall.  They were 3.6mx2.4m sheets which I picked up cheap but a sod to manhandle alone into place.
Not as fancy as above but adequate for my needs.

----------

