I had a disasterous weekend...was offered a 6x8 shed for £50, but the snag was that it was in Bournemouth. Hired a van, went to Bournemouth (from London) and there was no way that the shed would go through the opening on the van (VW transporter).
Then last night some b*****d put a 6" scratch in the side of the van which of course the hire company are going to charge me the earth for.
All in all the weekend has cost me about £400, and no shed to show for it. I wish I'd just bought a luxury one in B&Q and had done with it ;)
But the point of this post is to enquire about building your own shed....how cheaply could I create my own cosy shed, how the heck would I do it bearing in mind that I have no skills whatsoever, and would anyone like to help? ;)
So where abouts do you live?
Twickenham, near enough!
Blimey. Hampton Wick.
Not that I'd have a clue where to start building your own shed. I bought mine from Homebase for £100, but I wouldn't recommend them, for various reasons.
Wickes do a £100 6'x4' shed, which looks OK (wish I'd seen them a year ago).
My longterm aim is to build a summerhouse in the old tradition on the site; there used to be about 35 brick ones and I don't know how many wooden efforts. There are still one or two left, plus a couple of more or less flimsy recent glorified sheds. I'm thinking of something about 10x12 feet, solidly built, but have n idea what it would cost.
really not sure on the price, a fair bit i imagine, i think you would need to work out alll the lengths, and go into a timber yeard, see what they can offer you as a bulk price.
i suppose you need to start with a frame, 2x1" pine would be fine. make 4 rectangles, that are nice and soild, then connect these to make a box. then tongue and groove it. and see how it goes.
I would check your tenancy agreement B4 you start to build as ours has a limit of 10'x8' sheds or greenhouses. ;D
There are limits, officially, but they're winked at on our site. Given that the plots are twice the size of any others in Birmingham, and that historically, people have had all sorts of things on them (most of which were smashed up by the Council when they took the site over, much to the disgust of the landowner), we can do pretty much what we like. A dozen people have just put up buildings which transgress all the rules, and it's never been questioned.
It was suggested on here that I look on ebay for a touring caravan. I did and found just the one which was at £30 :) Good place to keep your tools etc and somewhere for the kids to hang out if they get fed up. Oh and somewhere to make the tea etc.
I checked with the council, wished I hadn't, and they said "no" :( I have since spoken to a councillor who says they make the rules up as they go along. If I'd taken the wheels off and jacked it up with some bricks or timber etc I could have called it a "shed". I would have disguised it with runner beans so the council chap couldn't see it. But whenever has anyone seen a chap from the council on the plots????
Keep a look out in the local ads for second hand sheds. Mine is second hand and it's fab. Needed a bit of tweaking here and there but it's looking good. Free too ! :)
That's a good looking shed!
Hey Speedy Mango, you should be careful, I might ask you to come and help with shed building ;)
My initial thought was to have a caravan...a nice place to sit as well as to store stuff, and a loo too! You can tell I'm a girl ;) But nobody else on the site has that and I suspect it would be frowned on, although I might still ask.
Wickes WERE going to get my custom, but I went in two hours before they closed and they wouldn't sell me a shed because they were "right at the back" and "too much hassle" for them to get out :P So they can stuff it ;)
I'm wary of anything that cheap though....I suspect it would fall down after a few months!
As for looking for one second hand...well that was my original plan. But if I found one now I'd have to hire another van, and I found out this weekend that it usually costs more than you expect!
As part of my well known generosity I promised the OH a shed at Christmas, what else could she have wanted? So over the festive season we were cutting, chiseling and hammering.
We have ended up with an 8x8 with pyramid roof, aka the pavilion or ice cream stall. All timber carried in a Micra!
Someone kindly donated windows and I reckon it will be £300+ including guttering, paint, etc, so I think if you are on a tight budget anything pre-made will be a bargain against building one yourself (although we could have taken significant short cuts and reduced the price). But what the heck, I'm sure that we all have a shed in us and, fortunately, I have now exorcised mine.
Oh, by by the way, it got finished in June, probably explains why we are bit behind this year. ;D
I'm thinking of killing two birds with one stone by building a second shed using dried courgettes and possibly runner beans.
Quote from: Old Central on August 09, 2005, 23:29:50
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Someone kindly donated windows and I reckon it will be £300+ including guttering, paint, etc, so I think if you are on a tight budget anything pre-made will be a bargain against building one yourself ....
I'm sure that Old Central is right and a build-it-yourself isn't a cheap option. These guys http://www.buildeazy.com/ have free downloadable plans for anyone wanting to build a good quality shed.
Personally, I'd still go the secondhand route. Find a local shed, ideally an already dismantled one, and if necessary pay to get it delivered by a "man and van" operation.
We got ourselves a "bargain" or so we thought!
Saw a shed for £80 in Focus which had been slightly damaged (was meant to be £99,99) but nothing too serious. Went to buy it on Saturday - not sure if it was Saturday staff syndrome! but it took 1 hour to do the paper work >:(, and they charged me £15 to deliver it about 3/4 of a mile! The girl could not get it into her head that £19.99 is not a 10% discount of £99.99.
To top it off, I had arranged delievery for Friday after 3pm when I finish work. They have just rang to say they were outside my house and were going to leave it in the street as we were not in, so had to rush home (only 5 mins away luckily!).
Anyway, rant over! Morale of the tale is - DO NOT BUY A SHED FROM FOCUS THEY ARE RUBBISH!
djb renton  ;D    you can dry the veggies off til they go hard like jerky :) My leftover courgette bread would be good - just like leather ;D
Coudn't afford a 'proper' shed. Built mine out of pallets. Mind you, it doesn't have a door but then I don't leave anything worth pinching in it.
OK! have calmed down a bit now. :)
You could start entering competitions in magazines. I was always a bit sceptical of them, but I won a greenhouse in one of the "send your name and address - free giveaway" type competitons in Gardens Monthly! Was very pleased, i never win anything!
Suzylou - When you find a suitable shed why not consider using a trailer to move it. A dismantled shed would lie flat on the top of even a small trailer. Just make sure you strap it down properly. We've done this a few times with our 3' x 4' trailer with no problems.
Apple
Thanks for the advice all. In the end I went to B&Q yesterday and bought a sweet little 6x4 pent for £99. It's only £20 delivery and they will bring it to the lottie.
I wish I'd done that in the first place :P Still, live and learn!
Hi All,
Sounds like you are having a lot of shed fun !!!
I personally objest to spending money at the allotment. Don't get me wrong, i have nothing against spending money, and i do love the lottie, but i just think it is wrong somehow to spend hundreds on a shed for my allotment...
Anyway, an alternative is to go to somewhere like www.adtrader.co.uk, and search for a free/cheep second hand shed in your area.
I got mine last year for free (after a few weeks searching), it came from somoone a couple of miles down the road, he helped me take it down, and even gave me some spare felt that he had got to redo the roof !!!
Worth a thought, don't you think ?
Darren.
P.S. yes i do also nick old carpet from skips to use for weed suppression !!!!!! :)