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My shed is my seaside sanctuary. I started building during the pandemic and completed once retired. Living in an inner-city environment, my shed offers me a quiet space to to relax and practice my amateur painting.
The vast majority of the decor has been collected over many years, while on travels with family to our favourite seaside towns and coastal villages. Each souvenir holds special memories and to be able to display and be surrounded by them is a great joy. It also enables me to share past memories with others when they visit.
Everybody that has visited so far has been blown away to find a peace of the seaside just a stones throw away from one of the city’s busiest roads. Especially as the building was originally an old outside toilet, built in 1911 in a traditional back yard of a terraced property.
My wife had spent a lot of time converting the yard into a garden with furniture, plants and flowers using various paints and materials. She said the garden was her domain and the shed is my problem. Thanks love!
So prior to lock-down, I took the opportunity to order all the materials I felt I needed to transport this waste of space into my shed of dreams. Then during the Covid pandemic, I was placed in to lock-down and decided it was the perfect time to begin.The first thing I had to do was dismantle the part of the inner walls as they had become unsafe with perished mortar. After rebuilding and re-pointing the inner walls, I chose to keep the original structured lintel as a feature. I used Cuprinol Urban Slate paint on the lintel and exposed brick work.
The original door was rotted and so had to be replaced. After modifying the door’s framework, I found I had to hand build a custom door to fit the new frame, and then treated with stain and varnish. Finishing touches included replacing the window and 2x1 wood strips on the ceiling. The whole design was always meant to look weathered, which was another challenge when attempting to recreate a "beach hut" style finish. I needed insulation too, so that I could enjoy the shed even after the had summer ended. This is where I believe my shed is mostly unique, in that I decided to use a wood-distressed laminate flooring for the walls, with exposed fastenings.
When the period of lock-down ended and I had to return to work, I temporarily paused the work for what I thought would be a few months. This turned out to be a few years, like many DIY projects. However I was determined to finish and made this project the first on my bucket list to complete once retired. I finally completed the shed in July 2024, unfortunately too late to enter that years competition. My only regret during the conversion process was when my wife asked me I wasn’t using the electric screwdriver she bought me 2 years prior? At this point I had manually screwed in over 600 screws with 20% left to finish. I had completely forgotten this gift. Putting any worries about my memories aside, I picked up the tool and quickly flew through the remaining work.
The end result was beyond my wildest expectations, especially coming in under £1000 for the build and its contents. I would like to believe everyone can take inspiration from my little build, but unlike me, please don’t wait for the tide to come in before you start!
