A Wide Choice of Coverings for Top and Sides

You can enclose an outdoor structure the same way you would a house—add ply wood or fiber sheathing plus shingles or clapboard and a built-up floor—and you should use such durable materials if the purpose of the building demands it. That is seldom the case, and lightweight coverings—often more attractive and functional than the standard ones—generally suffice for auxiliary buildings. To a great extent, the coverings depend on the construction method: for an A-frame, the roof is also the side walls; for a simple dome, very light covering supplies the roof and the walls.

While a rainproof roof is necessary for a storage shed, it can generally be made of corrugated plastic panels or plywood covered with inexpensive, quickly applied roll roofing. Many other structures—lawn pavilions, shade houses and the like—are more pleasant with open roofs. Open rafters, with decorative end cuts, may be enough alone or they can be joined by crosspieces. For more shade, you can cover the rafters with latticework or rows of slats or use some more exotic material such as shade cloth or woven reed or bamboo. You can use many of the same materials—lattice, bamboo or woven reed—as siding, or you can fill the open walls with aluminum or fiberglass screening to let in light and air while excluding bugs.

A floor often can be dispensed with, particularly for storage sheds on dry sites. You can use the ground as it's , cover it with gravel or sand, or pour a lightweight concrete slab. A slab will also serve as flooring for a pavilion or a shade house, but wood decking is generally more comfortable. Unless the structure is going to be fairly weathertight, such wood floors are generally made slatted to provide spaces for drainage.

Custom Cuts for Rafters

90 Designs for rafter ends. These six patterns are the most popular for adding a decorative touch to the plain ends of open-structure rafters. Enlarge the pattern you plan to use on graph paper and transfer it to a rafter. Use a saber saw with a rough-cut blade for the cuts.

91 Simple Roofing that's Weatherproof

1. Setting roll roofing. Apply a plywood sheath and nail or staple the upper edge of a full-width strip of roll roofing so that it overlaps the eave, then fold it back so you can spread 12”-wide borders of cement on the sheathing. Press the strip firmly in place and nail its corners down.

Apply additional strips of roll roofing in the same way, allowing a 4” overlap of each upper strip over the strip below, until the roof is covered.

2. Setting ridge pieces. On a gable roof, cut pieces of roll roofing 12” by 36” and cement them along the ridge, overlapping 6” like shingles. Nail the last 6” of each piece to the roof, so that cement and the succeeding piece cover the nailheads.

On a shed roof, let the top strip overlap the upper edge of the plywood sheath 5”. Fold the overlap around the sheath edge and nail or staple it to the face of the upper crossbeam.

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Openwork Roofs for Light Shade

Slats for shades. Nail parallel rows of 1-by-2s to rafters, using a slat as a spacer and working down if the roof is pitched. To make a safe working platform on the roof, temporarily nail to the rafters a sheet of plywood with a 2-by-4 foot-stop along the lower edge. Move the platform as you work down the roof; near the eaves, finish the job from a ladder.

Staggered egg-crate crosspieces. For a distinctive open overhead pattern, mark for cross- pieces between horizontal rafters, using a tape measure and combination square. Cut the cross- pieces from boards of the same dimensions as the rafters and face-nail through the rafters into the end grain of the crosspieces.

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Installing Latticework

1. Laying out the lattice. Cut pieces of lath to approximate lengths for a crisscross pattern, then staple them at a 45° angle to the sides of a rectangular frame of i-by-is, using a length of lath as a spacer. Cut off the protruding ends of the lath evenly with a saber saw.

2. Attaching the frame. Using finishing nails, se cure the lattice frame against 1-by-1 or 1-by-2 stops nailed along the inside edges of the structure’s framework. Use a lightweight finishing hammer for greater accuracy.

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Making and Repairing Screens

A Detachable Screen Frame

1. Assembling a metal frame. Miter the ends of frame sections at a 45° angle with a hacksaw, keeping the spline groove toward the inside of the frame; then slip adjoining ends over a right- angle metal fastener to lock each corner.

Covering the sides or even the roof of an outdoor structure with screening makes an attractive compromise between openness to and protection from the out doors. The screens allow air to circulate but keep insects out and , to some extent, soften the glare of sunlight. Moreover, they are simple and inexpensive to assemble and they give good service for years without maintenance.

Most screening is either or fiberglass. Aluminum screening corrodes in salt air, but resists tearing better than fiberglass and is easier to pull taut. Both materials come in packaged rolls in widths up to 48” and lengths up to 72”. Longer pieces will be cut to order by most building-supply dealers. The easiest—and generally the best—way to attach screening is to staple it directly to the wooden members of a wall or roof. Staple every 2” at one end, and then have an assistant draw the opposite end taut while you finish stapling. Follow the same procedure on the other two ends and nail molding over the edges of the screening to cover the staples.

Many people prefer, however, to put the screening on separate frames that can be attached to and removed from the structure like window screens. The frames can be made of wood—rectangles of 1-by-4s to which the screening is stapled—but aluminum frames, constructed from special channeling and connections, are easier to build.

Sections of aluminum screen frame, designed to be cut to size and snapped together over right-angle fasteners, are available at hardware stores in lengths up to 8 ft. They generally come with a spline—a length of rubber or vinyl tubing that clamps the screening inside a groove along the edges of a frame. To set the spline into the frame, you will need a screen-spline roller, avail able from screening suppliers. The maxi mum size for a screening frame, whether wood or metal, is 4 ft. by 8 ft. To screen larger areas, build several frames.

Small holes in any screening material can be patched by gluing a larger piece of the same material over the hole, but each material also has a special repair method. A fiberglass patch can be fused to the screening around the hole with an electric iron; for small holes in aluminum screening, you can either glue on cut-to-size patches or buy special screening patches with tiny hooks that lock into the screening. But larger holes or rips near the edge of a frame can't be repaired effectively; you must replace the screening entirely.

95a 2. Inserting the screening. Cut screening slightly larger than the frame, snipping off corners at 45 deg to prevent bunching, and secure the screening to one side of the frame with C clamps. Then pull the screening taut to the opposite side and roll the concave wheel of a screen-spline roller over a length of spline to sandwich the edge of the screening into the frame groove. Re lease the clamps, sandwich the first side in place, and repeat the procedure on the other two sides of the frame. Trim off excess screening.

When working with either metal or stiff plastic screening, you may have to crease the screening into the frame groove with the convex wheel of the roller before installing the spline.

3. Hanging the screen. To fit a metal frame into a large rectangular opening, slip its top into a ½- inch aluminum U channel screwed into the top of the opening. Nail shoe molding along the opening’s sides and bottom; this will act as a stop to keep the screen frame in place. Install the U channel and molding near the inside or outside edge of the frame, depending on whether you want the screen to mount from the inside or the outside of the structure. To lock the frame use turn buttons, screwed into the bottom and side edges of the structure .

95b Patching Small Holes in Fiberglass Screening

A simple hot patch. Lay the screen flat on an ironing board and cover the hole with a patch an inch larger on all sides than the opening. Cover the patch with a thin cotton rag and run the edge of an electric iron at its hottest setting slowly over the outside edges of the patch until the patch fuses to the screening.

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Airy Sheathing, Easy to Mount

You can use any of a number of lightweight and inexpensive materials to add the siding and roofing to outdoor structures that you plan to use only in warm weather. Exotic materials—bam boo, woven reed or synthetics, shade cloth or corrugated plastic—are especially suitable for structures like domes, trellises or tree houses because they require minimal support and can be quickly attached to almost any existing framework.

Woven reed, bamboo and shade cloth protect from the sun but only corrugated plastic will keep off heavy rain. If the structure will shelter shade-loving plants, you may wish to use shade cloth, which is available in a variety of weaves that admit different amounts of light. Woven reed and bamboo are normally used to cover outdoor living spaces.

Of these materials, the easiest to install is shade cloth made of synthetic fiber; the polypropylene is preferred by many for its durability and light weight. Shade cloth must be specially ordered through a nursery or garden shop, which will cut it to size, reinforce the sides and install grommets to your specifications. Order shade cloth cut 4” smaller all around than your roof so you can lace it in place. Specify reinforced edges and No. 2 brass grommets, one in each corner, two 3” from each corner and the rest spaced 18” apart. Untreated bamboo and woven reed are cheaper and more natural-looking than shade cloth and , because they can be trimmed to size with metal shears, do not have to be specially ordered. The bam boo shades sold for use on windows can be applied to side openings.

Woven reed, also used for both siding and roofing, is sold in 6-foot-wide rolls in 15- to 25-ft. lengths. For a roof, the reed can be sandwiched between 1-by-is and galvanized wire. For siding, it can be stapled to removable 2-by-2 frames.

Corrugated plastic panels, reinforced with fiberglass, are more difficult to in stall—they need to be nailed to special filler strips—but they pro vide rain protection. They should be in stalled on a roof with a minimum pitch of 1 inch to 1 ft. or, in a snowfall area, a pitch of at least 3” to 1 foot.

Plastic panels come in standardized widths that work with rafters spaced 16 or 24” apart. Most building-supply companies carry these sheets in 8- to 12- ft. lengths, and longer lengths can be specially ordered. They can be cut to size with a fine-toothed handsaw or a circular saw fitted with an abrasive blade. Install the sheets in courses, starting at the low edge of the roof, and overlap courses to make the roof watertight.

Using Shade Cloth and Woven Reed

96 Attaching shade cloth. To lace shade cloth to a roof, install 3¾” lag bolts in the corners, stretch the precut fabric across the roof and tie the corner grommets to the eyebolts, using a double square knot. Screw additional eyebolts along the sides of the roof, lining them up opposite the grommets in the cloth.

Tie one end of a length of synthetic cord to a corner eyebolt and lace the free end of the cord through the corner grommet to the next eye- bolt, from there to the adjacent grommet and so on to the end of the side. Similarly lace the opposite side. With a helper, hand-tighten the lacing on both sides, keeping the fabric centered between the exterior rafters. Similarly lace and hand tighten the two remaining sides.

97a Roofing with woven reed. Fasten the 1-by-is every 4 ft. with .e 22-gauge wire threaded through the -eecs s-c around the 1-gauge wire, and secured a twist at the top of the 1-by-1s.

Techniques for Reed and Bamboo

97b Siding with woven reed. Tack 2-by-2s flush with the support posts (): the corner 2-by- 2s flush with the outside of the building (in set),the center 2-by-2s flush with the edges of the support posts. If necessary, remove the angle braces. Screw metal plates at the top, center and bottom of each 2-by-2. Cut three 2-by- 2s to fit between each set of vertical 2-by-2s. Place them horizontally between the metal plates and screw them in position. Screw the vertical 2-by-2s to the support and corner posts with flathead wood screws, two to a post.

Cut the woven reed flush with the outer edges of the frame. With a helper holding the reed, staple the top corner to the frame with 1” galvanized staples , then staple it every 6” along the top, sides and bottom.

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Hanging bamboo shades. With the shade on a flat surface, tie the cord furnished with the shade to the back of the single pulley (below, left), run it down the back of the shade, up the front and through the first pulley. Then run the cord across and through the double pulley and form a loop.

98a Pull the remaining length of cord down the front of the shade and up the back and tie it to the back of the double pulley.

Roll the blinds up and mark the position of the eye hooks against the beam. Pre-drill holes and screw the hooks in, using pliers for leverage.

A Translucent Rainproof Roof

98b 1. Attaching the filler strips. After installing a fascia board and nailing cross supports between the rafters at 3-ft. intervals, nail the scalloped wooden tiller strips along the tops of the fascia board and on top of the cross supports. Then cut and fasten the plain wooden strips to the tops of all but the end rafters.

Pull the remaining length of cord down the front of the shade and up the back and tie it to the back of the double Pulley.

Roll the blinds up and mark the position of the eye hooks against the beam Pre-drill holes and screw the hooks in, using Pliers for leverage

99a . Installing the panels. Beginning at the lowest point on the slope of the roof, lay the first sheet over the rafters so that the last valley of the corrugated plastic sheet lies flat against the end rafter. Caution: in high-wind areas, always lay the first panel farthest from the direction of the prevailing wind. Drill holes slightly smaller than your nails through the valley of the plastic on the end rafters, through every second ridge along the fascia and the cross supports, and along the rafters every 12 to 15”. Secure the plastic with self-sealing roofing nails.

Overlap the panels on the rafters, sealing the joints with non-setting mastic to the lower pan el. Predrill and nail the panels together.

If you are sheathing a gable-roofed structure, the ridge edge of the panels should be secured after you have installed the aluminum ridge-roll flashing supplied by the manufacturer.

A Tropical Topping of Split Bamboo

99b With a few simple hand tools, you can build a pavilion of bamboo, much like the one that so impressed Marco Polo as he arrived in the city of Shandu. The building shown here, while it lacks the gilt and the silken walls of the Oriental palace, is an attractive and functional structure based on modern structural techniques and ancient craftsmanship.

After the gable roof is built, a layer of 3” split bamboo poles spaced an inch apart is laid, round side down, between the ridge and beams and attached with thin galvanized wires or with common nails. Then another layer of split bamboo is placed over the first layer, round side up, to form a durable, watertight roof. The bottom layer acts as a rain gutter; the overlapping second layer seals the joints. -A last overlapping layer of bamboo is laid at the peak to form a ridge cap.

A “poor man’s timber” in the tropics, bamboo is hard to find in northern climates. If used, it should be treated with a heavy coat of marine varnish to protect it from rot. Because of its high tensile strength, bamboo can be used over very widely spaced rafters, but if you need to nail it to supports between rafters, predrill nail holes in the bamboo to prevent it from splitting.

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Wooden Floors for Comfort

Adding a Permanent Deck

100 1. Building the understructure for a deck. Attach 2-by-8s with lag screws to the outsides of the posts, then nail joist hangers inside this frame for 2-by-8 interior joists spaced 16” apart. After you have installed the joists, nail 2-by-8 bridging boards between them in a staggered pattern. Finally, attach nailing cleats to the posts of the structure at the height of the joists to provide support for the deck boards whose ends will butt the posts.

2. Fastening the boards. Nail several ft. of decking, with the boards spaced ¼” apart. As you proceed, use a tape measure to be sure that the boards are not drifting out of parallel with the understructure. If you find a deviation, correct it by adjusting the angle of the next few boards. Caution: make these angle adjustments well within the floor area; the final decking board must align with the end of the understructure precisely.

Floors are an integral part of some structures: the A-frame, gazebo and tree house all depend on their floors for sup port. Other buildings, which rest on below-ground footings or a concrete slab, as does the post-and-beam structure at right, are built without floors and may not need any. But to provide a dry and ventilated surface to walk on or to serve as a platform for storage, an additional wooden floor may be desirable. For a permanent deck, build an understructure as shown. For a removable floor, build portable deck modules, called duckboards, to rest on the ground or slab.

The deck surface can be 2-by-2s, 2-by- 4s or 2-by-6s spaced 1/4” apart for good drainage. Laid flat, these boards are normally nailed to 2-by-6 or 2-by-8 joists spaced 16” on center.

Wherever possible, lay the boards so that the rings visible in the end grain are crest up: if the board warps, it will bend along the lines of the rings and shed water easily. And you can avoid splitting the board ends when nailing by first blunting the nail points with a hammer.

101a 3. Squaring the end boards. It is generally easier to lay the boards of a deck without trying to line up edges exactly—the lengths of pieces vary a bit—then square off all the ends at once with a circular saw. Trim one board to the overhang you prefer—up to 2” is usual—then nail a lath strip to the deck boards as a cutting board so that the left edge of the saw’s horizontal platform, or shoe, guides the blade.

101b Putting Together a Portable Platform

Making duckboard decking. Face-nail 2-by-6 boards onto a 3- or 4-ft. square understructure, made by butt-nailing pressure-treated 2-by-4s. Space the boards about 1/4” apart, using a strip of plywood as a guide, but adjust spacing of the last few boards so that the outermost board fits the end of the frame precisely.

Make as many of these miniature decks as you need to cover the floor, adjusting size so they fit.

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A Glassed-in Framework to Nurture Seedlings

A cold frame looks like a low box set flat in the ground. It is in fact a miniature greenhouse with a hinged glass or plastic roof. Within the frame, soil and air are warmed by the sun’s rays even while the temperature outdoors is below freezing, and you can start seedlings long before the beginning of the growing season. When spring comes, you can replant the seedlings elsewhere in the garden and enjoy flowers, fruits and vegetables far sooner than unaided nature would allow.

For the cold frame’s top, or sash, you can use an old storm window. Make the walls of rot-resistant cedar, redwood or cypress (or less expensive wood treated with preservative), matching their dimensions to the size of the sash—typically 2½ ft. by 4 ft.. For larger cold frames, use two or more windows, mounted side by side. If you do not have a spare storm window and can't buy an old one at a reasonable cost, build a frame of 2-by-2s and cover each face of the frame with a sheet of plastic. Air trapped between the two sheets of plastic provides insulation for the cold frame.

Slope the side walls of the frame from a height of 12” in back to 6” in front, and set it facing south, so that the roof slants toward the noon sun. Treat all wooden parts that are not naturally rot-resistant with copper naphthenate, a preservative that does not harm plants; do not use creosote, pentachloro phenol or mercury compounds to pre serve the wood—they are toxic to plants. Paint the inside of the frame white so it will reflect the sun’s light and heat. Finally, install a prop to hold the sash open for cooling—a temperature above 700 inside the frame could injure the seedlings. The design shown will hold the sash securely even on windy days. To stop excess heat loss on frosty nights, drape a tarpaulin over the cold frame or pile leaves or straw around it.

You can, if you like, warm the plants with a heating cable and thermostat, available from gardening stores, to convert your cold frame to a hotbed. Dig out the soil inside the frame to a depth of 6”, put in a 2” layer of sand and zigzag the heating cable on the sand. To protect the cable from damage, cover it with ½” screen mesh, then cover the screen with 4 to 6” of soil.

1. Making the side walls. Lay a window sash atop a length of 2-by-12, with one corner touching a line marked 5¼” above the lower edge of the board and the other protruding ¼” beyond an upper corner. Mark the diagonal and cut along it to make one frame side, then use the cut board as a template to cut the other side. For the back and front of the frame, cut a 2-by-12 board and a 2-by-6 board to match the length of the window sash less 3”.

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2. Assembling the frame. Screw the side boards to the front and back pieces, plane the top edges of the front and back to match the side slope, and anchor the frame in the ground. Dig a 2” trench in the soil, sink the frame in place, then drive 2-by-2 stakes at the inside corners, using 18” stakes at the back and 12” stakes at the front. Attach the frame to the stakes with wood screws. Use butt hinges to attach the window to the back of the frame.

3. Rigging the prop sticks. Glue four ½” dowels into holes bored toward the front of the frame and sash sides, using dowels 5” long in the frame and 4” long in the sash. Drill ½” holes through the dowels. Make two prop sticks from 24” lengths of 1-by-2, drilled with %” holes at 2” intervals. Slip the sticks over the dowels to hold the window open and push cotter pins through the dowel holes to secure the sticks.

Tips for Using a Greenhouse Kit

The easiest, most economical way to add a full-scale greenhouse to your property is to buy one in kit form. Kit models range from compact units, 4 ft. by 6 ft., to structures that enclose areas as large as 1,000 square ft.

The least expensive kits contain parts for lightweight redwood structures that rest on a level bed of sand or gravel and are covered with plastic film. Somewhat more costly are heavier redwood frames that are anchored in the ground and support rigid fiberglass panels. While not crystal-clear, these synthetic coverings admit almost as much light as glass.

Modern glass-paneled greenhouses, built with aluminum frames, are considerably more expensive than wood- frame models, but the aluminum-and- glass greenhouses are attractive and long-lasting and , like wooden ones, can be equipped with automatic climate- control and ventilation. They do, how ever, require a firm and level foundation, especially in regions of loose soil or heavy frost.

Start the foundation by digging a rectangular trench and pouring a deep footing of concrete. Build the foundation up to grade with cement blocks. Then attach the base of the kit to the blocks, using the hard ware supplied by the manufacturer.

Almost all greenhouses need devices to keep the temperature within a limited range. Greenhouse manufacturers and garden-supply stores sell heaters, coolers and automatic ventilators but you can keep heating and cooling costs down by locating your greenhouse with its long axis running east and west, ideally underneath a large deciduous tree. This will keep it cool in the summer but give it full winter sunlight, when the leaves have fallen and the sun is low.