Build Shed

I really didnt know what colour I wanted to paint the room. All I knew is that it had to be reasonably light, as there is only light coming in one one wall, which the sun doesnt shine on until late in the afternoon. 

With this in mind, I had planned to go with an off-white on three walls, and then a light green on one wall to add a bit of colour into the room. 

Well that didnt exactly happen. I went into homebase to see what paint was available and to try and get an idea of what I should go for. While I was there we accidentally found a clearance shelf, with misc paints on it. 5 minutes later Id picked out a coffee/mushroom type light colour for the three walls, and a darker chocolate colour for the feature wall, in addition to a "Liquor-off-white" colour for the ceiling. 

The total cost? £0.00. Yep, thats right. Free. 

The paint went on beautifully and worked really well. I was a bit worried about the darker chocolate colour and that it may make the room seem too dark, but thankfully it doesnt.

For the door/window/windowsill I had planned on staining the wood to a dark-brown colour, so bought a tin of Homebase wood stain, called something like "ash oak". On the tin, it was very dark, however once painted onto the windowsill, it came out a very ugly bright orange! Despite having three coats, it just looked terrible, so in the end I had to change the plan and go for white. This meant the wood had to first be primed before it could be painted. Heres where that nice bargain I got at homebase on the interior paint gets off-set. For the primer, undercoat and eggshell white paint it cost £60. A complete rip off, but I had little other options. 

Thankfully as it turned out, I didnt need the undercoat as the primer was a 2-in-1, so I can get £20 back on that. I still fell £40 is still a heck of a lot of money to paint such a small area white, but maybe Im just being a tight git!

The whitework didnt come out brilliant, with a few streaky marks on the door, but it will suffice. I certainly wasnt going to go about doing it all over again, as by this point Id already waisted 4 days in the process.

For the flooring, I opted for laminate. I did look into both carpet and solid (bamboo) wood, however for the low-cost and efficiency, laminate seemed like the best option. Id have loved a solid bamboo floor, however I know itd get scratched to bits and would need replacing in half the amount of time. 

The laminate I chose was a Wickes branded one called Butter Oak. Its a mid-range flooring that uses a lock-together system, so doesnt require any glue. 

I used a silver-faced underlay, which acts as a vapor barrier in addition to levelling any minor imperfections. Id have liked to use the green fibreboard, however from the information Ive read, on thinner laminate flooring such as mine, it would have created a very bouncy floor. 

The silver underlay went down very easily, and has an adhesive strip on it to fix each length together. This creates a complete vapor seal (much like using aluminium tape on celotex does). 

Once the underlay was done, the flooring went down and was surprisingly quick and easy to do, with minimal cutting needed. In total it probably only took a couple of hours to do!

I added a pre-finished white skirting board around the edge of the room. I paid the extra for the pre-finished ones as not only is the paintwork way better than I could do (it looks like its sprayed on), but it would have saved me a good 2 days waiting for the primer and paint to dry.

The skirting boards were fixed to the wall using small soffet nails (which have a white head, making them blend in) and some instant grab adhesive. 

At this stage the room is now complete and ready to be used! There are still a number of fairly minor things to do on the outside (such as a guttering and another coat of exterior paint before winter), but these can all be done over the next couple of months. So long as they get done before the end of summer, itll be fine. 

This certainly is not the end of the blog posts. Ill be posting a price roundup soon in addition to a tips and common problems that happened, as well as more photos of when I move in, how security is done, heating, lighting, etc as well as some posts after Ive been in there over winter and such.