Now that I’ve been in my house for several months and the weather is warmer, I began looking for my first big investment; a storage shed for all my lawn equipment. Being on a limited budget, I sought the largest shed I could find at a reasonable price. Arrow was the brand that won out.
I bought my Arrow 8’x10′ shed at Home Depot for $199. That price included the floor frame similar sheds require as an extra purchase. If you figure in the plywood I needed to buy to finish the floor, my cost was roughly $241; well under my budget.
From what I’ve seen on the Arrow shed so far, it will provide me with more than enough space for my lawn mower and my gardening equipment along with my daughter’s sand box (this winter) and wagon. It is also high quality; having already been through two thunderstorms and everything inside stayed dry.
My biggest complaint about Arrow is how long it took me to construct the shed. With three people working, it took us almost three days to put it together.
What is amazing about this is the fact the shed itself wasn’t that difficult to put together. The pieces were already pre-cut and the holes lined up perfectly for the screws and bolts.
The problem with the shed was actually with the instructions. Those were difficult to read and offered very little detail about how to put the shed together.
For example, when we first started, I started with the floor. The shed had two different sets of instructions for the floor and both had different directions and different piece numbers. After about 60 minutes of head scratching, we realized one set was for the interior frame while the other set was for the shed itself.
Later, while still assembling the floor, the instructions told us to connect two pieces and “we would know it was right when the holes lined up.” However, there were several holes to choose from and we tried several ways of connecting the pieces without any clear answer about which holes we were looking for. We finally had to measure it out (to the 91 inches the book said it would measure to) to find our answer. Around this time, after looking ahead in the book, we learned we were laying the bars out incorrectly; something the current instructions gave us no indication we were doing.
If you’re looking for a good bargain, look for Arrow. But, if you don’t want to spend a lot of time deciphering instructions and trying to put your shed together I would suggest buying a more expensive brand or seeing if the store you’re buying it from offers a delivery/set-up service to save yourself some future headaches.
