Plans For Sheds

I hate to have to do this but it’s the only option at the moment. We had a tornado come through about a week or so ago & it tore up our entire back fence & parts of the side & our roof. Now the pets are MY responsibility & so I have to pay for everything for them. Food, bedding, litter, etc. Well during the day all of our pets go outside w/ supervision of course, however now they cannot because of the fence. I’m in a pinch I need to build a temporary enclosure for them. I’ve been having to put them on the chain & I hate doing that & the cats like to climb & they almost hung themselves today.

Luckily I was only a few feet away from them. Anyway, I’ve got to pay for the fence since it was to keep the pets in the yard to begin with & I don’t have the money at the moment. I don’t have a job, I use my allowance to pay for their basic stuff & do odd jobs when I can. I’ve got a job lined up in about 2 weeks but I need something now. My dogs are little so I don’t need chain link, chicken/poultry wire will be enough.

It’s mainly for my cats, the dogs can stay on the chains outside for the next week or so if they have to. I’m going to add it onto the end of our garden shed which is being renovated into my bedroom. I plan for it to be at least 10′ x 10′ x 6′. Will this be big enough for a temporary enclosure? Also, should I use 2×4′s or metal? Which one is cheaper & should I use U nails? Will they be able to dig under gravel? I don’t have enough money to buy blocks. I know it’s a lot of q’s but I want them to be free & safe.

ok, heres the deal,my back garden is quite small,its used for my children to play in,there is only a metal mesh kind of fence either side as both neigbours have children my childrens age and they all play together.so the back garden is really theres as i dont really like the fact that people can see me sitting in it lol.i have a dog,he loves the garden,a collie,he isnt very distructive but he does like to play a game at the bottom of the garden,he jumps up at the fence continuesly making the grass non existant there.also there are patches all over garden as he goes to the toilette and kills the grass.he has a digging spot at the top of garden which he sticks to and doesn’t dig anywhere else.i have a concrete path,quite large.it goes from house at top of garden to fence at bottom and to shed.also a drain so i have had to put garden on 2 levels or it would have just been a big slope.i do sit out there sometime and i have a garden swing which i sit on in evenings when all children have gone to bed.
heres the problem.my garden looks a mess.no matter how many times i sort grass out big mud patches appear and its not just from dog,grass doesn’t take very well in these gardens.
also there is no sun in garden but pot plants seem to do ok
i dont want concrete as its not that friendly if children fall over and wouldnt be the best thing for dog to go to the toilette on
gravel would be no good,the kids would have a field day and be digging it up
wood chip no good ,same problem
and i dont want the garden to look silly,i tried that fake grass stuff,which was good,but as garden is so small it just looked stupid
can anyone help
i thought about sand,but would that get trailed into the house and can kids play in it cos they would want to,maybe a bit to messy?
any ideas massivly appriciated as ive no idea what to do ive tried so many things

I’m planning on building a tool/garden shed in our back yard. Instead of burying posts, I’m planning on building it on skids.

Most of the plans I’ve seen for sheds resting on skids call for an inch or so of gravel under the skids. I assume this is to provide drainage so the skids won’t rot resting on wet ground.

However, we’ve got a lot of decorative quartz garden rock that the previous owner used as ground cover under a ground-level patio. We were planning on just taking that to the dump, but is there any reason not to use that instead of gravel under the skids?
Just to clarify…there’s no slab where the shed will be – there’s just dirt right now.

The previous owners had a ground-level deck in another portion of the back yard which as been removed. Under the decking they had put down plastic and the decorative rock on top of the plastic, presumably to prevent anything from growing.

The decorative rocks are roughly 1/2" x 1" in size – larger than gravel. But I’m wondering if these rocks are small enough still to serve the same function and if there’s any other reason I’m not aware of that gravel would be a better alternative.

Thanks!

We built a shed on our property about 4 weeks ago. We used #2 gravel for the base. We now have a family of woodchucks that keep burrowing under the shed. They are kicking the stones out and making a terrible mess. We keep filling in their tunnels and they keep remaking them. How do I keep these little buggers out from under my shed?

I created a Japanese garden with fountains, lanterns, bridges and fine gravel. I even combed the gravel and rock to give it that zen quality. However, my neighbor has this shit bag tree that sheds leaves all over it; but, even worse it has these weird nut berries that created a huge mess when they burst on the ground. How can I protect my garden that I worked so hard on? Is there a shade to cover it?