Shed of the year 2024, Sponsored by 
My wonderful dad made my shed when I got my new allotment plot. It was a real labour of love. He's 86 years old, and a retired engineer who loves recycling, so using reclaimed pallet wood was the obvious choice. He designed the shed, we sourced and took apart all the pallets and he made it in his garage, flat pack style so that it could be taken apart, brought to my allotment and re-assembled. This is no ordinary, roughly made shed; it’s made with the same precision and detail as if using expensive timber.
My shed is full of memories, a few pots and seed trays. It's a great place to sit and shelter and the great grandkids love the end which has been created for them ... a bench, little stools (made with leftover pieces of pallet), colouring books, snacks and drinks. We've had picnics inside and the little ones have an afternoon nap.
Outside is a 'shed shelf' ... perfect for photographing produce.
Four generations of my family are enjoying the shed, it's become a real focal point of my plot.
All the materials for our 4-generation shed are reclaimed, the only new things were the padlock and personalised metal sign. All the hardware came from that part of my dad's shed containing things which would come in useful one day!
We used about 24 pallets in total, and kept the structure of each one, just modifying parts and using pallet wood as overlays for the gaps. My dad became an expert at how to dismantle a pallet without losing too much.
The corrugated tin roof sheets were bought from a reclamation site; we looked on Marketplace for weeks and of course, a local supply appeared after we'd finished the roof!
When the sides and base were finished in my dad's garage, held together with clamps, we labelled each section, took it apart and stacked it onto a trailer to bring to my allotment.
My dad and husband then assembled it one Saturday along with the roof and guttering.
I documented the whole build on my Instagram account @weddingflowerpatch under the story heading 'pallet shed'.
