First buy a kit..

Courtesy of the nice folks at Screwfix, and Shire Garden Buildings, we ordered ourselves a new summerhouse, specifically the Aster 12x8 foot model.

We had a delivery date of 29th March, then lockdown happened.. but it turns out deliveries of existing orders are ok, so a pile of parts arrived on our driveway.

Paint everything. Twice.

It’s surprising how much garden space you need to lay out all the parts and paint ’em… also worth noting is that some of these do NOT fit through a standard 78"x30" door frame so we had to carry them over the garage flat roof - you’ll need 4 people for that as the heaviest panel weighs ~80kg.

Prepare the ground and install base

The instructions are really big on having a level base, luckily for us the previous building here took care of much of that, and we were able to re-use the wooden joists it stood on, after flipping them round 90 degrees so they are orthogonal to the timbers making up the floor panels. Also of note - the veranda floor is not connected to the other panels other than at its ends so both it and the main floor panel need support along their join (you can’t see it here but we have a 4th joist doing that bit). In case you were wondering, the fork was left there as a position marker while we flipped the panels over and back to screw them together underneath.

Assemble!

Attach all the walls, starting with the shed structure to give stability, then work along the back across the other end and the front, using a spirit level to check your work as you go and adjust before screwing it all down to the floor. Nice.

Be careful your floor isn’t distorted when making the last join, we had to readjust on discovering the shed section was slightly tilted backwards!

Roof it. Add windows, fix electrics :)

..and we’re done! We took our time, doing a couple of hours a day so we took the best part of a week to finish. It can be done in a day once the parts are painted and dry.

Welcome to the comfy outdoor living experience, yes that’s a BBQ patio to the left, and yes we have power and network installed (I’m working from home in here real soon!)