If you know what you want in a shed, just get on with it, unless you can make it bigger
By Ian Parkes
Photographs Tony Carter
Harley Coombe didn’t want a steel shed. “I’m a wooden shed man,” he says. “It’s easier to modify and hang stuff on the walls.”
But after getting a couple of quotes he thought he’d better get a couple of quotes from steel shed suppliers too. “Even the best of the wooden sheds weren’t within cooee,” says the Taranaki mechanic.
And it didn’t take him long to decide to go with the local KiwiSpan supplier.
“I just like to get on with it and there was no messing about. I said I could give them a level patch of clay and just handed it over to them. The other guys, there was more humming and harring and I could see right away these were the guys for me.”
Harley had given them a list of basic requirements.
He wanted height to fit in a tractor he was doing up and a boat, with space for motorbikes, and a hoist, and it had to fit within a building consent envelope. KiwiSpan came back quickly with some plans and a quote.
They gave him both three and four-bay options which prompted a quick rethink. “I talked it over with some mates and had a look at another shed and of course they said you need the biggest shed possible. The price difference for the extra bay wasn’t that great so we went with it.”
Owner operator of KiwiSpan Taranaki, Joel Schrader, said ‘that’s what we do”.
“We quote exactly what the client wants and then give them a couple of options. You can save a bit of money here or for not much more you can have an extra bay. You only do it once and you can never have too big a shed. That’s something that never happens, said Joel. “We’ve never had a complaint that a shed is too big.”
Joel said Harley and Susan had a budget in mind but they worked out the cost per square metre and the bigger shed worked out cheaper so they went with that.
“They were great to deal with,” said Joel. “They knew exactly what they wanted, they liked the quality of the KiwiSpan shed and they were ready to get on with it.”
Harley said his new shed went up very smoothly — better than the house build which was going on at the same time.
The shed also went up fast which meant it became handy storage for materials for the house build during the winter. “That was part of the plan,” Harley says.
Harley added the water tank, catching water from the roof, and he lined one end of the shed with plywood. That gave him the ‘man cave’ area he was after with the original idea of a wooden shed and the ability to hang stuff wherever he wanted. He chose to line it to the roofline, just for the extra sense of space — something he is not short of.
Harley is delighted with the shed, and his decision to go for the extra space to really make the most of a great opportunity to create a great shed.
Plywood panelling creates a cosy man cave
This hoist adds access and provides good storage
