Oct 10
15

Wooden Garden Sheds – Review of Shed Plans

If you want to buy shed plans you can buy individual plans (can get expensive if you want a few to choose from) or a collection of plans.  We have bought and evaluated the best shed plan collections you can buy:  Woodworking4Home and  MyShedPlansElite

Summary of Conclusions: Both Woodworking4Home and  MyShedPlansElite are decent products.  Both come with the re-assurance of a 60 day money back guarantee, both contain dozens of shed plans and hundreds of other woodworking products.  If you search the ‘net, you will find My Shed Plans Elite is heavily promoted, but in our opinion it does not offer the best collection of shed and woodworking plans, that No. 1 spot belongs to Woodworking4Home.

Simply, if you want to buy the best collection of shed plans package, buy the Woodworking4Home pack – it gives more plans for your money.

OK – let’s get on with the review.

If you are looking for shed plans there are a couple of suppliers selling packs of DIY shed plans and woodworking plans on the Internet.  We wanted to see just how good these were and whether they offered real value for money, so I bought both sets of plans and compared them.  This is a review of the Woodworking4Home pack containing 14,000 woodworking projects and plans.

Woodworking4Home is not as well known as its main rival MyShedPlansElite, but after reviewing both products I can honestly say Woodworking4Home is the better of the two.  If you are looking for DIY shed plans, house & barn plans, and general woodworking project plans, Woodworking4Home provides you with plans for more than 60 garden sheds, 50+ houses and cabins, 50+ barns & stables and literally thousands of woordworking project for the home!

MyShedPlans is heavily promoted and is a good product, but it is not as comprehensive as Woodworking4Home.  Here’s an in-depth assessment of Woodworking4Home:

Woodworking4Home

Price advertised $49.00

 

Quantity of Projects:★★★★★ 
Quality of Plans:★★★★★ 
Bonuses:★★★★☆ 
Value for Money:★★★★☆ 
Modern Designs:★★★★☆ 
Overall Verdict:★★★★½ 


Overview of Woodworking4Home

Once you pay your money, you are directed to the download page and can begin downloading all the material.  Make sure you record the URL of this page, your username and password, so you can return and download other plans as required.

It literally took me a few days just to wade through the contents of this package, there are so many projects, plans and blueprints to look at.  Overall I am very impressed by the quality of the material and you really can’t fault the quantity provided.  The project files are usually excellent, containing lots of exploded diagrams, plans, cutting lists and step by step instructions with photos.  There are projects for the novice, intermediate and experienced craftsman.  There are also blueprints for houses and cabin that will be of real interest to the professional builder and give the rest of us an idea of what we could construct using the services of professionals.

Sure, with this quantity of material (and there really is a great deal to go through) you will come across the occasional project file that doesn’t match the standard of the rest, but overall it is a very impressive package.  If you are keen to construct a good shed that will last for decades, you will have more than 50 DIY shed plans and projects to choose from.

If you haven’t already got a good sturdy workbench, I suggest you download the work bench project files and make building a workbench one of your first projects.

What You Get:

Woodworking Projects

1600 pages covering 330 projects.  Each project contains plans, cutting lists, diagrams and illustrated step by step instructions.  Project details are very good and will enable an inexperienced woodworker to make some stunning items.  My one criticism is that a small number of the projects look rather dated, but most of these designs could be easily improved just by simplifying the design.  Here is a small sample of the 330 projects:

Barbecue Trolley, Bathroom Cabinet, Small Boxes, Basic Board Fence, File Chest, Fire Place Mantle Piece, Roof Framing, Garage, Arbor Bench, Garden Screen Fence, Children’s Bunkhouse Loft, Tri-Color Chess Table, Serving Tray, Computer Desk, Cappuccino Bar, China Hutch, Corner Display Cabinet, Child’s Armoire, Shaker-Style Woodbox, Earth Mover, Toy Box, Bunk Beds, Child’s Bed, Bookcase

DIY Projects

150 topics covered.  There are typically 7 – 10 pages with diagrams on each topic, providing a very good understanding of how to undertake the task.  When you put all these projects together you have got a really good 1200 page DIY manual.  The 150 topics include:

Build a Shed, Wall Tiling, Changing Taps, Painting Problems, Fitting a Mortice Lock, Building a Shower, About Pvc Windows, Hanging a Door, Timber Care, How to Fit a Toilet & Bidet, Renovating Wood, All About Decking, Electrical Safety, Fitting Extra Electrical Sockets, Dry Rot & Wet Rot, Garage Floor Insulation

Woodworking Guide

21 chapters covering all aspects of woodworking from basic joinery and glues through to understanding lumber and sandpapers.  There are 120 pages for the woodworker that wants to graduate from working with MDF and chipboard, and learn about working with solid wood.  This is aimed at the novice rather than the experienced woodworker.

Woodworking Tips

107 tips and techniques.  Many are just 1 or 2 pages, but a few are 10 or more pages.  Useful tips that are worth printing off for future reference.  Tips cover:

Wood Stains, Glossary of Woodworking Terms, Timber Guide, Shelving, Sharpening Guide, Screw Chart, Routing Techniques, Plugging Mortises, Lathe Turning, Jig for Mitre Joint Gluing, Dovetail Jig, Applying Edging, Man Made Wood, How to Use Varnish, Planing End Grain, Stub Tenon & Groove, Sanding

Bonuses

159 “How To” articles covering a broad spectrum of DIY areas.  Each guide is 4 – 6 pages, although there was one guide that contained more than130 pages!  These are excellent guides and very useful for the keen DIYer.  Areas covered include:

gardening, DIY, woodworking, repairing concrete, brick laying, roofing, repairing dripping taps, painting & decorating, plumbing, mower tune up, fencing…

Videos

There is a selection of woodworking videos from YouTube.  Quality is variable and to be honest, rather disappointing.  You can probably find better videos by undertaking your own search of YouTube.

Other Downloads

This is a veritable goldmine of woodworking and DIY shed plans!  Here is a collection of plans and projects covering 110 woodworking and construction topics.  There is a great amount of information on each topic and the downloads are very large, many are 30+MB, some more than 60MB.

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality and quantity of information provided for each topic.  For each subject there can be literally dozens of different projects files, each project files containing plans, cutting lists, illustrations, photos and step by step instructions.  Additionally, for many topics there are a number of blueprints – although most of these blueprints are more suitable for the professional builder or team of craftsmen.

The content varies from topic to topic – some project files run for more than 10 pages and go through the build process in great detail, others have less detail.  To give you an idea of what you can expect, see below for details of the material provided for a couple of the topics:

Sheds

The information pack contains 207 projects and blueprints.  If you want a good selection of various DIY shed plans and projects this pack fits the bill and is really excellent:

  • Details of 50+ different DIY shed projects, ranging from 20+ page project files containing exploded diagrams, plans, cutting lists and build instructions through to single page blueprints.
  • Blueprints of 52 houses/cabins, some of these are great looking homes.
  • Blueprints for more than 50 agricultural buildings, barns and stables.

Cabinets

The “Cabinets” information pack contains 136 project files with plans, cutting lists and instructions.

Home-Office

This information pack contains 30 project files, many include full plans, cutting lists and instructions.

Topics Covered

arbor plans, bench, bird feeder, bridge, cabinets, cart, chest, fireplace & mantel, coaster, cutting boards, dog house, fence, garages, hammock stand, jig, lamps1, lamps2, mixed plans, screen, shelf, storage, tool box, utility buildings, media centre, bedroom, coffee table , outdoor, gun cabinets, tools, wagon, weather station, winter, wishing well, garden, landscaping, 4 house, cellar, compost bin, barns, bookcase, bucket, candle, CD holders, chicken house, cold frame, decks, dresser, file cabinets, gazebos, horse barns, kids & playground, mailbox, ottoman, rabbit houses, scroll saw, stand, swing, toys, work bench, children room , home office, birdhouses, crafts, containers, router, signs, sport, cradle, door, drill press, easel, lathe, mantel, boats, cat house, beds , bee hive, box plans, cabin, carport, chair, clock, computer desk, desk, farm shop, frames, greenhouse, hutch, knife block, mirror, pergolas, racks, sheds, stool, table, tray, plant stands, entertainment, camping, kitchen, play house, squirrel den, trellis, wind generator, windmill, miscellaneous, games, guitar, humidor, bat house, billiards,

Highly Recommended

If you are looking for DIY shed projects or a great collection of woodworking plans covering practically everything you would make out of wood, Woodworking4Home really is an excellent choice.  I am very pleased with this product and given the number of articles and plans provided I think is offers great value for money.   It deservedly gets a 4.5 Star rating and is Highly Recommended.

Woodworking4Home

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