Deciding the right choice for outdoor storage

We moved into our new house last summer and quickly realized that our garage was on the small side.  It does fit 2 cars, but barely so.  With all of the bicycles, the garbage cans, the lawnmower, and the snowblower, there just wasn’t room in the garage for everything.

Last year I did put up hooks on the walls of the garage for some of the bicycles and I briefly considered getting one of those ceiling pulley systems, but decided that trying to attach something to the high garage ceiling would be a lot of work and it wasn’t clear how much it would help.  I would want to make sure the kids could get their bikes themselves and save me the hassle of having to be the one to always raise and lower the bikes.  The hooks on the wall obviously didn’t meet that solution either.

Mrs. F came up with the suggestion of getting a shed for our backyard.  I’d never had a shed before, but realized I’d always lived in homes with a 2.5 car garage – meaning there was extra room for all of the crap people store in their garage.  I’m not sure why the designer of our current house didn’t factor that in, but that’s what we now have.

I started looking at sheds last summer and nearly bought the Rubbermaid Big Max shed from Home Depot.  The Big Max shed is around 7′ x 7′ and seems to have gotten mostly good reviews.  Having recently moved, I had the 10% off US Postal Service coupon from Lowes, which our local home depot would accept.  The shed was $599 if I remember correctly, so it would have been around $540 after the coupon.

Around that time, I also saw a post on one of my favorite “Hot Deal” forums for a shed at Costco – the Keter Bellevue.  They were selling the 8′ x 6′ shed for $499.  I had actually seen it in the store earlier in the summer when it was $599 and it looked pretty nice.  Unfortunately, our local Costco was all sold out when this special promotion was being offered.

I decided to pass on getting the shed last fall as I had already moved the bicycles into the basement making room in the garage and it was getting pretty cool outside.  Once spring rolled around, we started looking again and Costco again had the Keter Bellevue in stock, but back to the regular price of $599.  They had one set-up in the store and it looked nice and sturdy, with skylights and a window.  You can see the information on the Keter website about the Bellevue Shed here.  It looked nice, was the right size and price, and I’m overall happy with the quality of products that Costco stocks.

As Spring break was approaching, we decided it was time to get one of the sheds and did go with the Costco Keter Bellevue.  When we went to Costco, they had only one set of boxes left (it comes in two large boxes).  They checked and said that they weren’t going to be getting any more in stock.  I would have preferred waiting until after Spring break, but we figured we better not wait.  We went ahead and made the purchase.

The two boxes fit into my SUV with the seats all folded down, but the trunk wouldn’t close all of the way.  I was able to tie down the trunk and get the boxes home safely.  With two average strength people, we were able to move the boxes out of the truck and get them into the garage.

Next entry:  Building a foundation / base for the shed!