How sports lovers can kit out their sheds

How sports lovers can kit out their sheds

If you've recently taken up a sporty new hobby or are finding a longstanding pastime is resulting in your home becoming cluttered with equipment, consider transforming your garden shed into a safe and secure area for keeping your sporty items.

It's easy for badminton and tennis racquets to build up in piles if your whole family enjoys the pastime, and the garden may be filling up with bicycles, helmets and the like, but the shed could be a simple answer to your storage needs. Read on to find out how you can make this space the ideal area for storing your equipment.

Remove the junk

Firstly, you'll need to make room in the shed for all your apparatus, so sort through the items already in situ and decide what you want to keep and what can be thrown away. You might need to make a journey to the tip if you've used the shed as a dumping ground for broken toys or appliances, while items in good condition could be donated to charity shops or cleaned up and kept.

Keep it clean

When you have a clear space to work with, set about cleaning the shed to remove cobwebs and debris that has built up on the floor. You may want to give any windows you have a clean and check the shed for rot or any other issues, such as damaged hinges.

Make it secure

During checks of the shed's condition, you should also consider the security of the building. Does the bolt work effectively or is it too stiff or rusty to use? Is the door locked via a key or a padlock? If you're going to start keeping your sports equipment in the shed, it's vital to make sure it's secure.

You could install an alarm system for the shed, or fit more effective locks. Having a sensor light installed could also help deter burglars, and you might need to check your contents insurance policy to make sure your belongings will be covered in the event of theft if they're stored outside the house.

Lay it out

The next step will be to think about how you want to use the space, such as whether you just want to keep the shed for storage or plan to use it for other means too, like a home office or a workshop. You could decide to lay it out by having your sports equipment at one end and a desk or workbench at the other, or by making use of wall space for storing your sports gear.

You may decide to keep the shed for recreation only, in which case you can add some extra items like a table football game or a punching bag to really make the most of the area you have.

Organise your equipment


When you've made the shed clean and secure, and devised the right layout for the area, think about how you're going to store your equipment inside. Depending on the sort of things you want to organise in the shed, you could look at shelving units, bike hooks and wall racks.

Wire baskets, chests, cabinets and stacking boxes are all among the shed storage options you could consider, and you can also buy special wall rack kits designed for sports equipment such as bicycles, racquets and skateboards.