1st Choice For Quality Garden Sheds & Buildings

All available in more or less in any size to suit you. All wooden sheds include free assembly saving you loads of money and making life just a little easier. They can be made bespoke to suit your needs in a range of styles, sizes and finishes.

When looking for garden sheds it appears very straight forward. Just click around the internet, find the size you want and then look for the best price. Easy YES? Well not really as there is such a huge array of varying quality sheds out there.

From the cheap and nasty right up to ones which would feel at home at Hampton Court Palace.

You need to do your homework to ensure you buy the right one for YOUR needs. Take a read of the following or look on our What You Need To Know web page or any of our Top Buying Tips pages.

1st Choice Leisure Buildings – ONLY Sell Garden Sheds Made to Very High Standards

FREE ASSEMBLY INCLUDED

By choosing to buy your timber shed from an established business you can be sure that they have a great deal of expertise in the industry. Also, they have become established by selling the right products at the right price.

Most importantly, they have been listening to their customers. By choosing a business which actually has a show site you can be sure there is somewhere to contact them if you need to. With online-only businesses, they can be here today and gone tomorrow.

With a business with an actual physical address, you will also find you can talk to someone if you choose. Just by typing in ‘sheds near me’ or ‘garden shed suppliers’ will generally find a local business.

1st Choice Leisure Buildings, a Family Business which was established in 1979. We also have a physical office and Show sites.

Toughened Glass As Standard

Sheds by their very nature are large and heavy so building them can be a challenge. This may be fine for some people but a company offering a delivery and installation service will always be a better option. Not only does it save you a lot of hassle, but you can also be sure it has been installed correctly.

Besides the assembly service for our sheds, we can also arrange for a base to be built. This can either be made from a slab of solid concrete or a tanalised timber sub-frame base. It’s even possible to arrange for your building to be painted in colours to suit you. Although the buildings do come with a protective treatment.

1st Choice offer a delivery & assembly service (mostly free of charge) to save you time & effort. Not just dumped in your garden.

Bespoke Garden Sheds

The internet is a wonderful thing but even with the flashiest of pages or glossy brochures, you can never get a REAL feel for what you are buying. For many items, this is not a problem but with your new garden shed it’s important to know that what you getting will meet your expectations. By actually viewing the proposed structure. you can be sure of the quality and how well it is constructed. You can see how tall it is so you won’t bang your head. Also how the doors and windows are made.

This will help you to distinguish from the cheap and nasty built to a price. Our well-constructed buildings are designed to last a long time. By viewing beforehand you can save yourself from potential heartache and stress. You’ll be glad you did!
The cheapest price is not always the best value. Click Here For A Walk Through Of Our Display Site

Visit One of the 1st Choice Leisure Buildings Showrooms – and see our displays near Guildford and Farnham in Surrey.

There are certain advantages for standard sizes or designs as these can help keep the costs down. However wouldn’t it be good to buy a building to suit you and your garden? By doing this you can utilise your new shed to have the best use and to fit in the space that you have.

Talk to a company which can make a bespoke structure in the size and design you need. The extra marginal cost can be the difference between making do or being 100% satisfied.

All you need to do is to talk to us about what your ideal shed is and we will do our utmost to meet your needs.

1st Choice Leisure Buildings can make virtually every shed we sell in a size and design to suit you.

Onduline Roofs With Air Gaps

Money can always be saved by selecting a cheaper timber such as whitewood. To a certain degree, it’s OK for a basic garden shed. However, It’s far better to insist on a quality redwood ‘deal’ timber. This wood grows far more slowly than whitewood so the grain is more tightly compacted, ensuring a longer life. A marginal extra expensive for a better long term prospect. Whitewood, because it grows quickly can be subject to the small knots dropping out.

All timber is responsibly sourced and is FSC ‘Forest Stewardship Council’ quality approved. This is very important these days where every effort needs to be taken to protect our environment.

The majority of 1st Choice’s garden sheds are made from redwood ‘deal’ timber for a long life.

Traditional Style Garden Sheds

You will find that most of the cheap garden sheds use chipboard, OSB, or Sterling board on the floors and roofs to save money. However, as soon as damp gets in these boards start to swell and disintegrate. That’s the end of your shiny new shed!

Some shed companies try to hide this by saying their floors and roofs are made from ‘Sheet Materials’. They avoid using the words chipboard or OSB board because they know there could be problems in the future.

1st Choice Leisure Buildings recommends solid timber – we do NOT use chipboard, OSB board or Sterling board!

An Ideal Solution For Your Home

Many of the cheapest shed companies deliver them in pieces where you have to build some of the panels yourself. Ludicrous! If you are buying a cheap shed always triple-check what you are getting! Your new buildings are unlikely to be pre-constructed, leaving you with a load of work to do. It may seem like a great idea to buy a kit. But know what you are letting yourself in for!

Perhaps when you left school you saw your future as a carpenter or a ‘chippy’. You may have been looking forward to a life building sheds. That’s fine! There’s nothing wrong with that. But if not then why don’t you let the factory’s do the work for you?

Insist on a complete building to be delivered to you.

All our Buildings are delivered in completed sections (and mostly assembled free of charge) to save you time and effort!

Visit this page for more Buying Advice You will be pleased that you did. Also, visit 1st Choice’s UK display sites and see for your self. There is a great selection of sheds built on our show site for you to view!

Before spending your money take the time to out visit one of our two display site in Surrey, close to Guildford, Woking, Farnham and Aldershot. Our friendly staff will be delighted to show you our buildings, listen to you and give you free unpressured advice to enable you to make an informed choice.

Click Here For A Walk Through Of Our Display Site

There are many things which make a house easier to sell such as being in a good state of repair and decoration, to being in the right area and near the right schools. Another main area to ensure looks right is the garden. The front garden give potential buyers their first impression and when they view the back garden then this also needs to impress potential buyers.Even simple things like ensuring the grass is cut and all weeds removed from any borders will help. Tidy away any random items so the garden displays an uncluttered look. Garden buildings can also play a part, whether it’s a garden shed or any other type of out building. If your outbuilding has been lined and insulated then this makes your house a much better proposition. And if it’s looking spick and span and, when combined with a tidy garden, will make your home more desirable.

The attraction of a an insulated garden shed is very appealing as this can give prospective purchasers a very good reason to choose your house. This will give them an opportunity to carry on using it as an office, or maybe they can use it as a recreation or craft room. Possible other uses are as a gloried den for the children which they would love. You can always look on the internet and ask what is the cheapest way to insulate a garden building or about insulation DIY options?

The choice of garden buildings is staggering with many different types available and you can see a good range on our web site. The most important consideration is to ensure it is lined and insulated (I always think this should be insulated and lined as the insulation has to go in before the lining. But it normally is described as lined and insulated, why I don’t know) The reason for the insulation option is to help to keep the building warmer in winter and more importantly, and not always appreciated, is to keep it cooler in the summer.

You need to ensure that the internal height is sufficient as many of the cheap (made down to a price) sheds and garden buildings are quite low. This is important as a low ceiling height will make it a little claustrophobic. Ensure that the building is made from T&G (tongue and grooved) timber and also, for long life, from redwood deal and not the cheaper white wood.

Where ever possible order double glazed doors and windows as this will help to keep the warmth in during the winter and the heat out during the summer making the building pleasant all year round. There is a number of options for the roof covering from heavy duty felt, long lasting Onduline roofing, felt tiles, cedar shingles or even a slatted roof. All will keep your new building dry from rain and snow so the choice is cosmetic.

The managing director of property developers, Puddlestone, said that there has been a significant rise if the demand for homes with insulated buildings in the gardens and this has made those homes more attractive and easier to sell. This is put down partly to the increase in people wanting to work from home due to the financial crisis. Having said that it does not always mean that the sale value will reflect the cost of the home office just that it makes the home easier to sell.

However, if you are thinking of investing in an insulated building for the garden it is good to know that it will help in the future to sell your home. So you have had the benefit of whilst you are living there and you also have the confidence that when you decide to move on it should be easier to do so.

If your concrete garage is being underused as a useful space, i.e. Your car is stuck outside and the garage is full of all sort of stuff (or ‘items various’ as my wife would say) then maybe you need to consider changing the use and converting it to a usable room. Depending on the usage of your converted garage you may need building regulations approval but if it is not being made any larger then generally planning permission would not normally be required. In both instances, it is worth checking with your local authority to be sure.You need to clear out the garage of all unneeded items and you will be surprised what you have in there which is totally worthless and pointless. The sort of things which you would normally find in a typiical garden shed. When you have done this you will have a clear empty shell so you can plan how you wish to proceed. The easier thing to do is to use the garage as a glorified workshop and this is easier to achieve.

If you wish to use a precast garage for full-time habitation then it best to speak to an architect or builder experienced in this type of work. This way you can ensure the work will meet building regulations which you would need to obtain. If there is a shortage of parking in your neighbourhood then this might mean you might not get permission but can work in your favour sometimes. Also, if you have a listed building then this might make a difference as well.

With the brick built garage, I had in my property I decided to utilise the space better so cleared out all the junk leaving me with a garage which was more or less empty. I got a builder in to remove the garage doors, which were old and tatty and replaced them with some nice UPVC double glazed double doors. I also had the personal door replaced with a modern UPVC window.

The roof void in my garage consisted of timber joists so I decided to fill the gap with two thickness of polystyrene. I use polystyrene as I cut this slightly oversize so when I squashed it into the gap it became self-supporting. When I had done this using plywood, cut to size, I screwed this into the garage ceiling. Prior to this, there were areas where I had to add some noggins where the joins were going to be.

The walls were treated similarly. I screwed into the wall some 50mm x 50mm pressure treated timbers at 16-inch spacing. (the 16-inch spacing meant that I had to only cut the plywood boards to the height of the garage) Again, I use polystyrene, but you could use fibreglass loft insulation which you can squash into place. Polystyrene was easier to use. After this, I lined the walls with thin plywood, which I screwed into place, but you could nail it. Reason for screws is that I could remove the panels to get behind with any electrical wires.

I was going to paint the plywood but found the plywood soaked up the paint and was rather patchy. I then decided to wallpaper the walls and then paint the wallpaper. Using an embossed wallpaper on the garage walls this gave me a uniform surface. I added coving to the ceiling and skirting boards and painted them. The ceiling took 4 coats of paint to get a reasonable finish but the wallpapered walls only need 2 coats to get a top-class finish.

In the end, I have a really clean highly functional modular room, which you could have as well if you have a concrete garage, which is easy to heat in the winter and does not get too hot in the summer. You could use this method in your garden shed as well and this, again, will be a great asset to your home.

The only problem I got is that the wife has decided this room is highly suitable for her and her friends. Their hobby is craft and card making and this is what they do most Wednesday nights.

When buying a garden workshop it seems to be very straight forward to – just click on the ‘web’ find the building in the size you want and then search for the best price. ‘Piece of Cake YES?Well not really as there are so many different heavy duty workshops available from the ‘cheap and possibly nasty’ right up to ones which would feel at home in a posh country home.

To ensure you make the right decision you need to do your homework to ensure you make the right choice and buy the right one for YOUR needs. By spending a little time before making a decision you can judge each option on its merits. Weigh up the overall value of each building to ensure you choose the right building. The cheapest choice is not always the best value!

1st Choice Leisure Buildings – ONLY Offers Buildings Made to The Highest Quality

FREE Assembly Included

By deciding to buy from an established business you will find this is the best option as you can be sure that their expertise in the garden buildings industry is key to their success. Also, normally this will only happen when they have been selling the right buildings to their customers at the right price and this normally follows after listening to them. By choosing a business with a fixed ‘brick and mortar’ address’ is always good as you can actually be sure there is somewhere to contact if you need to. If the business is only available on the internet then how can you be sure who they are and whether they will be here today, tomorrow and in the future. Having a fixed address is always a good thing to have and is reassuring if you need to contact them in the future. Sure – emails are great but you are dependent on these being responded to, and quickly.

1st Choice Leisure Buildings Established in 1979 – When they started making garden buildings and are a family business.

Pressure Treated Timber

You will find that these type of timber buildings tend to be quite large and heavy so assembling them can be challenging. This may be something you would like to do but it will always be a better option to get the experts in.

This will save a lot of heavy lifting and you can be sure that the building is erected correctly. Why spend a lot of money and struggle to build it? Let someone else do it and just enjoy the finished result.

The national average cost to build a new workshop on your property can range from £10 to £20 per square foot so you can see you can save a lot of money with our free construction service. Don’t risk your new building just being dumped in your garden!

1st Choice will assemble all their wooden workshops free of charge.

Barn Like Doors

The ‘internet’ is an amazing thing (thanks to Sir Tim Berners-Lee) but the flashiest of web pages and glossy brochure can never show a REAL feel for what you are buying. This is not a problem with many standard items but when selecting YOUR new ‘man cave’ or large shed it’s important to know that your expectations will be met with the same as what you ordered. By being able to view your proposed building you can be reassured of the quality and see how well constructed it is, you can check the height to ensure you won’t bang your head and can see if the doors and windows are made from stern stuff. This will help you to distinguish the ‘wheat from the chaff’ – i.e. the made down to a price cheap and nasty workshops, which are readily available on the internet, and the well constructed, properly made buildings which are designed to last a long time. The claims by the retailers, who only sell online, that it’s good to buy online and that you can save money may be true to a certain degree BUT there is only one way to be sure you won’t end up with that ‘cheap and nasty’ building in your garden. By viewing beforehand you can save yourself from the stress and potential heartache. And it VITAL to remember that the cheapest price is not always the best value. Click Here For A Walk Through Of Our Display Site

You will find that most of the ‘cheap’ sheds will use Sterling board, chipboard or OSB board or Sterling board on the roofs and floors to save money. This would be fine in an ideal scenario but as soon as any damp gets into these boards (and being outside is nearly unavoidable) they will start to swell and then disintegrate. This will be the end of your shiny new man cave without any expensive repairs.

These sectional workshop companies know this so by saying their floors and roofs are made from ‘Sheet Materials’ they hope to hide the fact from you. They avoid using the words ‘sterling board, chipboard, OSB board, etc’ as they know it’s quite possible that there will be problems in the near future. Be VERY cautious if any OSB board etc is used on a roof as this will fail as soon as it gets wet.

1st Choice Sectional Buildings – are free of chipboard, OSB board, Sterling board on all of their workshops.

Lined and Georgian Window

Standard sizes and designs have certain advantages as these can help keep the costs down a little however why not consider a building to suit YOU and YOUR garden. This will enable you to utilise your new sectional building and allow it to have the best use and to fit in the space that you have available.

By deciding on a company which can make a garden building in the size and design for you then this is what can happen. This might be a little more expensive but this small extra cost can be the difference between being 100% satisfied or ‘making do’. Well worth considering surely? 1st Choice started because the owner couldn’t get a building in the size and design he needed so decided to do it himself. 40 years on he is still helping customers get what they would like and that could be you. Don’t accept a compromise.

Bespoke 1st Choice Garden Workshops – in ‘more or less’ any design or size to suit you – it’s in their DNA

Extra Heavy Duty Buildings

It can be cheaper to use inferior grades of wood or whitewood and can be OK, to a certain degree, if you only want a shed to last a year or two. But by insisting on the better redwood timber you can ensure a long life for your new ‘pride and joy’ for your home. Redwood by its very nature grows slower than white wood so the grain is more tightly compacted and will last longer.

It also tends to retain more of the resin within the wood which gives it a waxy feeling which further enhances the virtues. Whitewood because it grows so quickly is prone to having little knots dropping out. So redwood, even though it can be a little more expensive, is the best option for a long term building.

1st Choice Garden Buildings – Select redwood deal timber on the majority of their buildings for longer life.

Toughened Glass As Standard

It amazes me that many of the cheap workshops, besides being made of chipboard, etc and other nasty materials, are delivered in pieces which you have to build some of the panels yourself. Absolutely Bonkers! If you are buying a cheap building always double check what you are getting.

All 1st Choice Workshops – are delivered in complete sections. Not just dumped in your garden.

Where Can I find More Information?

It amazes me that many of the cheap workshops, besides being made of chipboard, etc and other nasty materials, are delivered in pieces which you have to build some of the panels yourself. Absolutely Bonkers! If you are buying a cheap building always double check what you are getting. Visit this page for more Garden Workshops Buying Advice You will be pleased that you did.

These buildings come in a variety of materials such as wood, timber, metal, steel, plastic or concrete. Often the choice of material used for these tends to be personal choice but different claddings have varying pros and cons. Timber sheds tend to be most popular due to the natural feel it the material gives. However, whilst they are strong, one of the downsides is they need to be treated to maintain their long life. Tanalised or pressure-treated ones won’t require as much maintenance. They normally last for around 15 years, so are very popular. Some sheds are made from galvanised steel with a long guarantee against rust, so no treating of these sheds is required. Beware of metal buildings which are ‘electro-plated’ rather than ‘hot dipped galvanised’. This treatment won’t last as long. Sheds made from more durable materials won’t rust so are a viable proposition for the owner who does not want any maintenance issues. However, these type of units can look a little bland and industrial but do serve their purpose in the garden very well.

Concrete is the ‘bruiser’ of the shed world. Being made from solid concrete they don’t need any maintenance to speak off. They can brush aside everything that the weather throws at them. One of the downsides of these is the limitation in sizes available and. Also, to some people, they can feel rather utilitarian.

If a picture can paint a 1000 words then our new photo album is worth 1½ MILLION words. This saying meaning ‘a picture tells a story just as well as a large amount of descriptive text’ appears to have started in the early part of the 20th century.Frederick R Barnard, in his article in Printers Ink in December 1921, claimed the effectiveness of pictures in advertising and that his ‘One Look is worth a Thousand Words’ was oriental in origin and so added ‘so said a famous Japanese philosopher’ to his saying. Printers Ink also printed another form of this saying – ‘Chinese Proverb. One picture is worth ten thousand words’ also suggesting a oriental origin. You can view our album with over 1500 photographs depicting our super range of large sheds, garden buildings, summerhouses, workshops, garages and industrial building. All in full colour and each on their own page so you can view the great detail. All these photos are unique to 1st Choice, meaning you can’t see these elsewhere.

You can click through the thumbnails directly of the individual ranges, from Diamond, Trentan, Lidget, Platinum garden wooden buildings. Also direct links to StoreChoice, SafeStore and Capital Steel Buildings metal and steel buildings. With most of these ranges being only available from 1st Choice Leisure Buildings you can be sure you are not buying mass produced inferior buildings but quality garden sheds and buildings direct from 1st Choice and made to exacting standards where attention to detail is paramount.

Leading on from the above then what could seeing the actual product be worth – 10,000 words – more? We are happy to spend money on a display site and to have the confidence in our products to display them for you to examine in minute detail. All available for you to examine without high pressure salespersons as this is an unmanned display area.

At our garden building display sites in Surrey there are Large Wooden Sheds, Summer Buildings, Heavy Duty Workshop and Solar Potting Sheds, Heavy Duty Workshops, Garden Studios, Summer Houses and Log Cabins. SafeStore Secure Steel Buildings and StoreChoice buildings.

Consider why the mass produced garden building makers don’t have display sites, they certainly have the turnover to be able to afford display sites if they wished but this would then enable you to see what cheap materials are used, how weak the floor, walls, doors and roof actually are. There’s no law against selling anything from lightweight materials providing you are not led to believe that you are comparing these cheap garden sheds from the quality long lasting garden buildings available direct from us or the other quality manufacturers.

How do I know this? I’ve been in the garden buildings business since 1979 (pre Maggie Thatcher) so are aware of what is required. I’ve seen many large shed companies fall by the wayside because of the inferior products offered. Many of these larger companies claim to have been making buildings for many, many years and selling them direct, but in fact are ‘phoenix’ companies, new companies formed when the previous incarnation went into liquidation. And we all know what happens when companies go into liquidation – you lose your money.

So with our superb range, our photo album – with currently over 1500 photos – our large range of display buildings means that we, as a small family firm, can compete against the large mass produced shed companies because we can guarantee quality and actually care about our customers and reputation.

So in comparison with our superb photo albums, with each picture worth 1000 words, and excellent display site, with each building worth 10,000 words the large companies with no display sites are practically illiterate.

Garden buildings directly can help to improve the environment, just by ensuring that sustainable sourced timber is used. There is a number of certified schemes existing at the moment such as the Forest Stewardship Council as well as the Forestry Commission. All these organisations ensure that only trees which don’t affect the environment are used and that they are replaced with new trees. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a not for profit organisation which was established in 1993 to promote responsible management of our forests. By ensuring that your wooden buildings are sourced direct from protected areas you can make a contribution to help tackle climate change which we are always hearing about. This has to be good thing for all our futures as well as our children and their children. Where possible when making any repairs to your garden shed also try to ensure that sustainable timber is used, which thankfully, is normally the ‘norm’ in Britain.

Another popular option for timber buildings is to have a ‘living roof’. This helps to keep your garden building warm in the winter and cooler in the summer and also will encourage garden wildlife. Allowing grass, moss and various plants does create an habitat for insects and small animals to thrive but that is not always in everyone’s comfort zone. However, it’s not always very easy to do this unless the building is designed to take the weight of the grass and soil. There is also the issue by making the roof stronger to take the weight of the living roof you can make the use of materials not quite so green, so a bit of compromise in certain situations.

You could also experiment with different types of materials for your shed which can be beneficial to the environment, such as combining compacted earth and clay to help retain warmth in the building, however, you need to ensure that by doing so you don’t encourage rot against the timber of the shed.

Only recently it was reported that garden makeovers can be detrimental to wildlife as hedgehogs needs space to move around to find food and often go from one garden to another. When fences with gravel boards (often concrete) are used this stops them in their pursuit for food. Also, often they don’t have any space underneath them as people try to stop rats and mice getting underneath their garden sheds but this does not help these hedgehogs. The population of hedgehogs has dropped by 25% in the last 10 years and without help with continue to plummet through out the country.

Do you have a ‘living roof’ on your shed or garden office and do you have any direct reservations about it? Do you see any hedgehogs in your garden and do you have any issue with this little creatures?