Types of Summer Houses
Finding the perfect fit for your garden isn’t complicated – we made the process quite simple based on our experience gained through years in the business. We know exactly what our customers want, with a huge range that includes options for every taste, budget, and garden style:
Traditional Summer Houses
These lovely traditional summer houses bring a touch of quintessential British garden charm to your outdoor space. With lovely big windows, decorative features, and pitched roofs, our buildings are different.
Corner Summer Houses
Make the most of those awkward garden areas with our cleverly designed corner summer houses. These diamond-shaped buildings look amazing in garden corners, turning them into useful living spaces, but not at the expense of lawn or flower bed damage.
Insulated Summer Houses
Perfect for all four seasons, why not extend the use of your summer house beyond the warm months with our fully insulated options? With proper insulation in the walls, floor, and roof, our insulated summer houses for sale keep you toasty in the cold months and cool in those rare hotter periods.
Combination Summer Houses
You can choose between storage and relaxation – or you can just have both! Our combination summer houses come with a main area for enjoying your garden view, plus an attached storage section for keeping garden tools, furniture, and outdoor equipment out of sight. In other words, the best of both worlds.
Painted Summer Houses
Bring instant elegance and charm to your garden with our adorable factory-painted summer houses. Available in a range of gorgeous colours, our high-quality pre-finished buildings arrive ready to enjoy and require less maintenance than traditional wood finishes.
Why Buy a Summer House?
Unlike basic garden sheds (even the most luxurious kind), a summer house creates a purpose-built living space for a whole range of leisure and activities. You might be looking for a quiet work-from-home solution, a dedicated hobby room, or simply a peaceful spot to enjoy your morning coffee, for example. Either way, a summer house delivers on all fronts and adapts to your lifestyle despite the seasons.
Unlike typical summer houses for sale from budget retailers, our buildings are built to withstand the harshest of weather through the wonderfully unpredictable British seasons. With options for full insulation, double glazing, and proper heating, your summer house becomes a genuine year-round space.
Popular Summer House Sizes & Dimensions
Finding the right size summer house is a simple enough endeavour, but extremely important to the end result. Too small and it feels cramped, too large and it might overwhelm your garden. Here is how to choose:
Small Summer Houses
Perfect for modest gardens or when you just need a cosy retreat in a larger space. Sizes like 5×5 ft, 6×6 ft, and 8×6 ft create an intimacy that doesn’t dominate smaller gardens but still provides room for seating and small tables.
Medium Summer Houses
The most popular range for typical UK gardens. Our 8×8 ft, 10×8 ft, and 12×8 ft summer houses hit the sweet spot between spaciousness and garden integration, allowing for seating arrangements, hobby equipment, or even a small home office.
Large Summer Houses
When you are looking to create lots of extra room in your garden, our 12×10 ft, 14×12 ft, and 16×12 ft options will give you impressive internal space for divided zones and multiple activities.
Some of our most popular summer house sizes include:
- 8×6 ft: The entry-level favourite that fits most garden corners
- 10×8 ft: The versatile all-rounder for both relaxation and practical use
- 12×10 ft: Where serious summer house enthusiasts find their happy place
- 16×12 ft and larger: For turning summer houses into genuine living spaces
Design Features
While they may be simple design choices, a summer house lends a certain character and practical magic to your garden – and we can help you get it right stylistically with the following features:
Roof Styles
The roof of your summer house defines how the building works and – just as importantly – how it looks in your garden.
Our apex roof summer houses feature a classic triangular shape with a central ridge. This traditional design provides excellent headroom, efficiently sheds rainwater and snow, and creates that quintessential summer house silhouette that many people simply adore.
Fancy something more contemporary? Our pent-roof summer houses have clean lines with a single-angled slope. This type of summer house works beautifully when built against walls or boundaries, with a modern appearance that suits the design-minded.
Our Corner Roof designs are specifically engineered for garden corners, with roof lines that follow the building’s diamond footprint. These ingenious structures help you make the best of wasted space without dominating prime garden areas.
Cladding Options
Of course, the exterior finish of your summer house is also an important decision to make.
T&G Shiplap is the quality choice for most summer houses in the UK, offering a traditional look and feel. These interlocking boards, with their distinctive grooves, actively channel water away from joints, providing excellent weather protection. What’s more, they look wonderfully British.
With its curved outer face and tough interlocking system, T&G Loglap gives your garden a more rustic, outdoorsy, cabin-like feel. This type of cladding adds instant character while stubbornly defying weather.
Weatherboard brings a classic countryside aesthetic with horizontal overlapping boards that develop beautiful character as they age, and If you are looking for ultra-modern options, our Strong Core cladding offers amazing durability and minimal maintenance – perfect if you prefer the look of wood without the occasional treatment.
Customisation Options
While off-the-shelf summer houses in the UK are popular, customised options are growing in popularity as people realise they can design something that fits their lifestyle. Our affordable customisation options turn a simple garden building into a space that perfectly matches your tastes and preferences, including:
- Interior finishing: Turn basic structures into relaxing living spaces
- Electrical packages: for lighting, heating, and power – all essential for extended, everyday use like work-from-home
- Security options: Upgraded locks and alarm systems to keep your shed fortress-like
- Integrated shelving and storage: Clever solutions designed for specific items
- Tailored window and door configurations: Maximise views, light, and ease of entry
- Climate control options: Simple ventilation to full heating systems
- Paint finishes: in a wide spectrum of colours to blend with your home and garden
Why Choose 1st Choice Leisure Buildings?
Unlike many mass-produced summer houses for sale in the UK, we partner with specialised British manufacturers to create our Diamond, Sapphire, and Platinum ranges. Each range offers different levels of quality, features, and price points to suit each customer.
But what makes us different from mass-produced retailers is our quality and strong belief in customer care – an old-fashioned but important belief that we think is disappearing from many vendors these days.
On a more practical level, most of our summer houses come with free professional installation included in the price (a service many competitors charge extra for). We encourage you to visit our extensive display site in Surrey, where our friendly, expert team can help you customise everything from size and style to window placement and paint finish.
We don’t hide behind impossible “10-year warranties” with ridiculous small print that makes claims virtually impossible. As a generational family business, we believe in honest quality, fair pricing, sensible warranties, and summer houses that are genuinely built to last.
All of our summer houses for sale are made by craftspeople who take pride in their work, not by production lines focused solely on volume.
When you choose a summer house from our unique, curated range, you are buying decades of expertise, proper British construction, and the peace of mind that comes from dealing with a company that will still be here in the years to come!
Frequently Asked Questions
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Can I use a summer house all year round?
Yes! Our insulated options with heating systems provide year-round comfort.
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Do summer houses need planning permission?
Thankfully, no. Or at least, most don't. If they are 2m from boundaries, cover less than half your garden, and stand under 2.5m (flat roofs) or 3m (pitched roofs), you can avoid the red tape.
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How are summer houses delivered and installed?
Most come with free professional installation, with our teams handling delivery and construction on your prepared base.
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How long will a summer house last?
It's difficult to answer exactly, but with proper care, it should last 20 to 30 years or more. Of course, the lifespan varies with materials, local conditions, and maintenance.
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How much maintenance do summer houses require?
Annual inspection with treatment every 1-3 years. Factory-painted options need less maintenance, however.
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What base do I need for a summer house?
A flat and level base that is the same size as the building. Your options include concrete, paving slabs, or our base-building service.
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What materials are used in your summer houses?
We use high-quality European timber with T&G Shiplap, T&G Loglap, Weatherboard, or Strong Core cladding. We also use toughened glass for windows and quality ironmongery throughout.
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