Do It Proper

My shed is a cheapo flat-pack kit and as the supplier felt guilty having tried to fob me off with delivering the wrong model, they offered to erect it for free as a sorry. What they chucked up in a day would have taken me a week so I was happy. However, they got two monkeys to do it. The fury tails should have been a give-away. It was as weather-proof as an egg carton. I didn't have the justice-seeking stamina, time or money to sort it and wrapped the whole thing in a plastic tarpaulin from the B&Q.

That was two years ago, and even with the addition of a second tarp it still wasn't sea worthy. The planks were warping out of shape and making even bigger gaps. Mould and rust moved in; then the final straw, the cassette stack-HiFi stopped working. So finally, making use of the tropical summer we are having, I spent the last two weeks taking it back to the bone.

Top DIY Tip: when your battery-powered drill dies and you discover the price of a single new battery is not much less than a whole new kit which includes two batteries, don't be tempted to upgrade to a newer model, get the same. Then you have two drills, each with a new battery and you can leave one with a screw-bit in and the other a drill bit. Perfect for jobs like this. (This Christmas I'm going to ask Santa for a holster, then I'll be a force to be reckoned with.)

An old bird's nest on the neighbour's wall had been taken over by a swarm of bees, but thankfully the three layers of creosote I treated the roof with seemed to sedate them so I didn't get any bees in my ear.

70mm of Celotex insulation. Cool in summer, warm in winter. It's dear so I tried to find it secondhand on Gumtree locally but you only end up with odd scraps so I splashed out on new - then over-guesstimated how much I needed by two sheets (which isn't a problem as it will be good for the shady back wall). Neat edges finished with aluminium tape.

I wonder how much a sheet-zinc roof would have cost?

Top layer bituminous corrugated Coroline. It's a French invention from the '50s but I've only just discovered it. It's weird - but good stuff. 100% waterproof, you don't need to paint it, bendy, easy to cut, cheap. I made an anal pattern to calculate exactly how many sheets I needed with minimal wastage. The edges are finished off with a bituminous self-adhesive (but needs a primer) flashing tape.

Bring on the monsoon! My shed is so water tight, with the edition of a periscope and torpedo hatches it could serve as a submarine. BP