DIY garden shed for beginners

A wooden garden shed with windows and doors — Building your own garden shed is not that difficult, and there is almost no limit to how creative you can be with the design.

Difficulty

medium
Cost

> 175 £
Duration

1-2 d

Introduction

Summer, barbecues and the great outdoors – a garden shed can add to the fun. Here you can find out how to build your own refuge from the rain in just a few steps.

And if you still need inspiration for the surrounding area – i.e. your garden – you’ve come to the right place. We have lots of tips and projects for you, from creative ideas for DIY garden decoration through to a colourful DIY garden bench. Or how about a DIY outdoor cinema?

You need

Tools

Utilities

Spirit level or line laser
g-clamps
paintbrush

Materials

Beams
Rafters
OSBs
Support battens
Profiled boards
Impregnating pre-treatment

L: Length, W: Width, H: Height, D: Diameter

Planning

Before you pick up your cordless drill/driver, you should be clear about the purpose of your garden shed. This can make a big difference to the construction plan and the materials you use – do you want to build your own luxurious lounge or a rustic cabin?

What type of garden shed is right for you?

Our instructions are for a wooden garden shed with a pent roof, but other options are also possible:

Garden cube: The square look with a flat roof is all the rage these days. Alongside the relatively simple construction, one of the reasons for this is probably the boom in working from home. No quiet place to work in the house? Why not switch to the garden?

If you want to build your own garden shed to use as an office, remember that you will have to do extra work: You will need electricity, Internet, proper insulation and also heating. Ambitious, but not impossible.

Sauna: If you want to use your garden shed as a sauna, there are a few particular points to bear in mind. For example, a garden sauna always requires a permit, regardless of how big it is, because there is always a heater.

If you also want to fire the sauna heater traditionally with wood, this must be approved by a chimney sweep. You have to think carefully about thermal insulation, even if you use an electric heater. After all, you don’t want to have to wait three hours after work until the temperature is high enough for your first sauna session.

Japanese tea house: A Far Eastern ambience is all the rage. Simplicity, clean lines and the use of natural materials set the tone. A pent roof is a good choice here, because you don’t really get that Far East feeling with a classic gable roof. You can plan for sliding doors, which of course should not be covered with rice paper at our latitudes, as they would be traditionally. You can also build your own sliding doors.

The style of your garden shed will, of course, also depend on the overall look of your own patch of green. Get inspired by our garden tips from around the world, flower trends.

Preliminary design considerations for your DIY garden shed

Once you have chosen a particular type of garden shed, you still have to decide whether to buy a kit or build it yourself.

Kits are almost always made of wood. But which building material is best suited for your individual project? Some of the questions you need to answer when making your choice include: How long does the garden shed have to last? How good should the thermal and sound insulation be? How much maintenance do I want to do?

Each building material has its own advantages and disadvantages. The following table gives an overview to help you decide.

	Characteristics	Use	Pros and cons	Options
Stone	The name says it all: solid construction!	Not very common, but quite interesting for the exterior masonry	Pros: durable, storm-proof, warm in winter Cons: Much greater transport and construction effort (foundation!) due to the weight	Traditional brick Sand-lime brick Aerated concrete Lightweight building block, e.g. expanded clay
Wood	Stable, sturdy and long-lasting when properly treated	Very versatile, practically every conceivable construction can be realised	Pros: great look and feel Cons: Maintenance required	Includes: Spruce Pine Larch
OSB (oriented strand board)	Stable, robust, resilient	All-purpose material for flooring, walls, etc.	Pros: cheap and can be used universally Cons: Not that great looking	Various qualities for interior finishing and damp areas
Metal	Unbreakable, lightweight	Suitable for substructure and roof as well as façade	Pros: cheap and easy to put up Cons: ‘cold’ look	Various sheet metals such as zinc
WPC (wood polymer composite)	Wood polymer composite combines the beauty of wood with the advantages of plastic or metal	Versatile, also as boards and beams	Pros: hard, easy to clean, sustainable (bio-material) Cons: less sturdy than wood	Many colours and shapes
HPL panels (high pressure laminate)	Material consisting of at least two layers bonded together over their entire surface	Ideal for the façade	Pros: very resilient Cons: only available as panels	Various thicknesses and colours

Of course, not all wood is the same and not all stone is the same. For example, aerated concrete blocks (Ytong) are much easier to work with than bricks. They are not too heavy and you don’t need traditional mortar – they are glued in place.

If you opt for wood as your building material, you should choose a wood that is indigenous to Europe, from a cost and ecological point of view: pine, spruce or larch. Ideally, all are to have an impregnating pre-treatment. Larch is naturally the most resilient, but also the most expensive.

As to the shape of the roof: Gable roofs are more challenging to build and flat roofs can be hard to seal. A good solution is often a pent roof.

But pent roofs also need to be covered. Various materials can be used for this. Traditional roof tiles are not recommended as they add to the weight and therefore place increased pressure on your substructure.

Sheet metal as a roofing material is relatively expensive; bitumen sheets can be tricky to work with because the abutting edges have to be joined together.

Bitumen shingles that are nailed on are often a good compromise. If you want lots of light inside your DIY cabin, translucent twin-wall polycarbonate sheets are a good choice.

Let’s get started – step-by-step instructions

If you want to build your own garden shed, it is always an individual project. The size, material, design and so on are to be determined on a case-by-case basis.

The following step-by-step instructions serve as a guide. This shows you the basic way to proceed. We have opted for a simple garden shed with a pent roof.

Schematic representation of the basic design of a garden shed — The basic idea: design for a simple wooden garden shed.

Step 1 5

Building the foundation

Schematic representation of the ground anchoring using a point foundation — This is the principle of ground anchoring using point foundations.

DIYers often underestimate how important proper foundations are in order to transfer loads from the structure into the ground. The amount of effort you have to put into this depends on the type of garden shed you are building.

Basically, there are concreted point, strip and slab foundations. The concrete slabs you see when houses are built extend under the entire footprint of the building. You would need a lot of concrete for that.

In most cases, however, this should not be necessary for your own garden shed to be solid. It can sometimes be sufficient to compact the subsoil and use heavy patio flagstones instead of laying a concreted slab foundation.

Our example assumes that point foundations are enough. For your particular case, you should, of course, also take into account the condition of the subsoil.

Step 2 5

Erecting the base frame

When the foundations are in place and the beam anchors are ready, you can put up the substructure according to your building plan. Is your garden shed of a certain size and are you unsure about the structural requirements? Then it’s better to ask a professional.

In any case, make sure the vertical beams are strong enough and, if necessary, install braces between the rafters and the beams for reinforcement. And don’t forget to allow for a sufficient roof pitch!

Step 3 5

Attaching the side walls including doors and windows

Schematic representation of a garden shed wall clad with boards — The side walls clad with boards could look like this.

You then attach the side walls and façade to the base frame in a suitable manner. One practical way is to screw OSBs onto the substructure. This also helps to reinforce the entire construction.

You can then saw out the openings you want for windows and doors. If you don’t like the look of the OSBs for the external façade, you can screw on a counter batten (for ventilation) and attach boards to it. These also take up paint better and you can customise your garden shed completely.

Step 4 5

Covering the roof

Finally, cover your roof. The easiest way to do this is to use corrugated or twin-wall polycarbonate sheets. These are screwed onto the roof battens and connected to each other using aluminium profiles.

As a rule, you should also install a simple drainage system on the roof so that rainwater does not run off uncontrollably and cause damage somewhere.

Step 5 5

Finishing touches

Done! Now all you have to do is finish your garden room to suit your own taste!

If you still want more beyond the build your own garden shed project and need additional challenges: More is always possible, of course!

How about a cool barbecue made from a washing drum, for example, or a super spiffy outdoor kitchen?

And if you’re looking for even more inspiration, check out some of our creative DIY ideas and helpful tutorials.

DIY garden shed: FAQ

Here are some quick answers to frequently asked questions about building your own garden cabin:

Building a garden shed out of Euro pallets – is that possible?

In principle, yes. Pallets are cheap (or even free if you’re lucky) and you can use them to put something together very quickly. But if you have higher demands for your garden shed, pallets are rather unsuitable. We do, however, have a lot of other great projects for pallet furniture, for example the pallet sofa or the beach chair made from pallets or the table made from pallets.

Do I need permission to build a garden shed or do I even need to submit a planning application?

Quite possible, but it depends. As mentioned above, a permit is always required for a garden sauna. The following general rule applies: If you want to build more than just a small tool shed, a quick call to your local building authority is recommended.

My kids want their own garden room – what’s the best option for this?

As is so often the case, the right answer is: It depends! A kids playhouse can be simple, but it can also have a design that makes it expensive and a challenge for even experienced DIYers. The best thing to do is take a look at some different projects, for example our building guide for a house on stilts, the DIY kids playhouse or a DIY tree house. We also have an article on garden design for families.

Can you also build round garden sheds or should that be left to the professionals?

If by ‘round’ you mean the structure actually has a round footprint and is not a pentagon or even an octagon, then this is one for the real experts. Wood, for example, can be shaped so that it is rounded, but this is no easy task for a novice. It’s better for amateurs to keep things square and practical.