Today I'm going to show you how I built my mini-shed. You may be wondering what a mini-shed is though.

Well earlier this year when my solar generators went out in a blaze of glory (you can read all the sordid details about that here), so did the storage container that housed them. I'd built that out of wood and while it was rather easy to build, I wanted something this time that was less flammable. Go figure ...

So for my new generator, I decided to build a storage container out of earthbags because I didn't like leaving it outside exposed to the elements. I also didn't like lugging all 50+ lbs of it up the stairs into my trailer on a regular basis. For sure that would have been great training if I was preparing for some sort of weight lifting competition, but I wasn't. So I was abundantly less than joyful about this. I digress though.

Regarding the mini-shed, I didn't want to build anything big because I didn't want to spend a boatload of time doing it. And since its primary function was to house and protect my generator, I figured that small would suffice. So out of that idea, the mini-shed was born!

It really worked out great because it's just the right sized project for a beginner and a solo builder. I would say that collectively, from start to finish (well almost finished), it took me maybe 3 weeks or so to build. Now granted, that 3 weeks was stretched out over the span of about a month and a half because I work full-time and have other things to tend to. But overall, it was very manageable.

My friends and I had already built my pumphouse with earthbags, but this was my first foray into incorporating actual windows and doors into a build. I put two doors and two small windows on it. I wanted to have good ventilation through it and also I wanted to be able to have access from both sides to make it easier to get to things.

The interior size is not very big but surprisingly, I'm able to get a lot of stuff in there as you'll see in the pictures below. At the end I'll highlight the mistakes that I made which will hopefully help you to not duplicate them in your builds.

Let's jump into it:

The area I chose was small without much wiggle room thus limiting the overall size of the structure. Since it's for my generator, I needed it to be somewhat near my panels. I suppose I could have bought longer cables but I didn't think about that at the time and why spend money that I don't have to? Small was the preference though from the beginning so it worked out fine.

My original plan was to just have a rough gravel floor but I found it hard to move stuff around over the rocks, so I decided to do an earthen one instead. I removed the bigger rocks and tried to keep the smaller and / or flatter ones. Then I mixed together the same materials that I used for the plaster ... sand, straw, and water. I shoveled it in over the rocks and smoothed it out with a trowel. Then I left both doors open to let it dry.

I actually started the plastering before I attached the roof. The first coat is made from a mixture of broken straw, sand, and water. The second coat is stabilized .. its made from sand, water, and emulsified asphalt. This is to make it so that it needs less maintenance. A pure earthen plaster will wear or wash away with a greater frequency than a stabilized one. This has already happened with my pumphouse.

I must say, plastering is a lot of work! Granted, you're not lifting any heavy earthbags but it still can take quite a bit of time. Especially if you want a smooth wall. That is my goal and as you can see from the pictures, I have not attained to that yet. But I hope to. It just takes more time.

I was thinking to paint the roof a dark blue and the exterior walls a lighter shade of blue but after I painted the roof, I really liked the look of the brown plastered walls contrasted with the navy roof so I decided not to paint the exterior walls at all.

And walla! Presenting ... (drum roll please) ... the mini-shed!

Ok, yes I know its not perfect. That is obvious from the picture but ... it works! I decided not to plaster the inside as this was meant to be just a quick project and since the inside walls won't be exposed to the sun, there is no real need for it. For my home, yes the interior walls will definitely be plastered.

What follows is the proverbial bloopers reel in text form ...

One of my co-workers used to jokingly say, "I thought I was wrong once, but it turns out I was mistaken", lol. Well I was wrong a lot in this build. But, this was such great practice. I'm really grateful for all the things I learned along the way and I'm happy to have made the mistakes here so that hopefully I will not do such with my home.

1. I did not tamp the sides of the bags flat.
Basically when you tamp your bags, they will bulge out some on the sides. If you leave those as is, the ridges between courses will be more pronounced and thus require more plaster to smooth out. So next time, I know to use a piece of wood or something to flatten the bags on the sides.

2. I did the wall anchors wrong.
I cut some sheet metal with tin snips, bent it, and placed it between a course. The plan was to screw a wooden beam onto this and then hang stuff from that. Afterwards, I didn't feel like this was the sturdiest way to do it. I think it would have been better to embed wood blocks in between the courses and then I could just attach stuff to that.

3. I did not make sure that my bags were tightly packed together.
This resulted in many air gaps between the bags. This is not good. I filled those gaps in with spray foam but I surely would not want this to occur on my home build.

4. I filled my bags too full.
When the bag is too full it seems to come out a bit rounded even when you tamp it. I think this is partially why there were so many air gaps.

5. I should have cut the ropes for the roof tie down longer.
It was kind of hard to get a good knot tied in because I didn't give enough slack for that.

Overall, this was a fun project. I'm really thankful to have been able to do it and for God's protection while lifting over a hundred 40+ lb bags. I would recommend that anyone who is considering building with earthbags, to start out with something small and manageable. Don't let your house be your first project. That's kind of daunting and you will make mistakes. Its better to do that on something smaller and not as critical as your home.

Also a small structure like this could be tweaked to be used for other things. I was thinking that I could have built it a couple of feet into the ground, removed the windows, and made it into a small root cellar. Or it could be made into a playhouse if you have kids. Its versatile.

I hope that you enjoyed this how-to and that it was helpful. God's rich blessings to you!