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Project Garden: Beach Hut Shed

Thank you to everyone who gave me advice about patios in the comments and on Twitter – you made me realise that it’s not a job to do on a whim when you have a spare couple of hours. We shall be planning the patio with more care and I will bring you a round-up of all of the great advice B&Q sent to me as well. I haven’t decided if we’ll do it this Autumn or wait for Spring now – advice on this welcome as always.

We have managed to complete on of our big projects which was to paint the shed. Oh the shed! Do you remember the first time I bemoaned its orangey-ness? I’ll help you out – that wee baby I’m holding is Betsy. Yep, nothing happens fast around here.

My big inspiration for the shed is from The beach huts which line the promenade in Lyme Regis. Their white and pastel combination is a classic and we wanted to turn our shed into something more care free.

I chose a white and blue combination and decided to go with a twist on traditional designs to give us a fresh feel.

To suppress the dreadful orange stain we used an oil-based primer and then an exterior satin wood paint as our top coat. There was a point when it looked like the stain was coming through but thankfully this disappeared as the primer dried. The satin paint went on like a dream and I’m really happy with the colour fidelity. Materials cost us about £50 including brushes and sand paper.

We split the job over two afternoons, first cleaning, sanding and priming the shed then once that was dry applying the top coat. We can only get to two of the shed walls which made it an even quicker job but a rough guide is it took about three hours for each part including all prep.

Want to see how it turned out? Take a look at the mini film below…

(Newsletter and RSS subscribers might need to visit Housewife Confidential or view on YouTube)

With thanks to B&Q for supporting Project Garden as part of their Unloved Rooms initiative. For more information about this kind of post please read my disclosure for readers page. Kat xoxo

Read all of my Project Garden posts.

by Kat

I Need Your DIY Advice…

We have reached the job in Project Garden of which I’m most terrified – laying a patio.

It will be going in this corner of the garden and as you can see there are already a few patio slabs around the drains by the wall. The washing line is going to be moved and the patio will come out in line with the wall and be a couple of fence panels long.

We’re hoping to do the bulk of the work on Saturday when the children are out with their grandparents – I hope it’s as sunny as it is today!

Now, I have the super-practical Mr Kat in charge of the operation but he has never laid a patio either.

So I’m throwing out a plea for you to give me your best advice for laying a patio – what do I need to know, what will cause us problems and how do we get it just right?

And yes, if it is even possible our garden is looking more untidy than when we began but at least our quince harvest is looking good.

With thanks to B&Q for supporting Project Garden as part of their Unloved Rooms initiative. For more information about this kind of post please read my disclosure for readers page. Kat xoxo

Read all of my Project Garden posts.

by Kat

Naked Men in My Garden

As part of Project Garden pretty much our first job was to get rid of the naked men – makes sense, right?

It seems we’re not the only ones working on the garden this year. Our neighbours have been doing the same and in doing so have replaced their shed with a new shed, all good you’d think except the new shed left a gap at the end of the garden and our view turned in to this:

And yes, I am being kind.

Preferring a little freedom from naked (ok topless but really all the same) gardeners I decided we’d need some screening.

The wall separating our gardens is gorgeous and we have a jasmine well established at that end of the garden which had lost its footing when they changed sheds. We cut back the climber and reclaimed nearly two metres of garden space.

To keep the wall exposed we used trellis and to minimise flesh exposure we added in some brush screening, doubled over, until the jasmine takes hold again. The idea of using brush was to give the end of the garden a soft, organic feel rather than use more solid fencing.

I am pleased with the outcome and although it’s not a complete barrier my garden is once again a naked-man-free zone.

Photoshop skillz learned at the school of Kitschy Coo, let’s not look too closely..

With thanks to B&Q for supporting Project Garden as part of their Unloved Rooms initiative. For more information about this kind of post please read my disclosure for readers page. Kat xoxo

Read all of my Project Garden posts.

by Kat

Project Garden: Fence Painting

Since we moved in this fence has been an odd bone of contention. By convention we are responsible for it yet our neighbour has claimed it as his and wouldn’t allow us to replace it.

Over the last six years it has fallen down every time we have a high wind and gradually become more hole than fence. During the Winter break the wind ripped so much of it apart we decided we would replace it and live with the consequences.

To our surprise, on the first day back to work in January a new fence turned up and was installed. Hooray! Although it was bright orange and the old fence posts were still in play. Boo! We had some privacy but it still fell down in a stiff breeze.

Phase one of sorting out the fence for the long-term is to paint the panels. It’s one of those jobs that seems like it’s going to take forever but when you get around to it it’s done in a couple of hours. It would have been faster if I hadn’t had to keep the children occupied – what is it with children and DIY?

We used B&Q’s Timbercare in Dark Brown (Monty thinks they should rename that to: chocolate). We’re fans of brown for fences as it gives you a rich backdrop colour whilst fading gently with age – do you agree? Luckily the pot was big as the fence on the other side is going to be replaced and painted too!

I made a time-lapse of us painting the fence – two hours down to thirty seconds of watching paint dry (and it dries quickly).

I’ll be doing a time-lapse of the shed being painted next if only the weather will hold for a day!

With thanks to B&Q for supporting Project Garden as part of their Unloved Rooms initiative. For more information about this kind of post please read my disclosure for readers page. Kat xoxo

Read all of my Project Garden posts.

by Kat

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