Unlike your kids’ bedroom, your yard doesn’t become a disaster area in a day. It starts in small, seemingly benign ways. One day, you’re weeding the paving or repairing the hedge – something you had probably put off for weeks. After all that work, you’re wiped out, so you go to the back door, take off your gumboots and gloves, pile your tools next to them, and leave them outside. You trudge into the house all muddy and dank, and maybe get yelled at.

The focus of displeasure? You’re tracking mud into the house. So you go back out, grumbling, and clean your dirty feet. Maybe you make an attempt to mop the dirt you dragged in, which means you now have a muddy moist rag you can’t be bothered to clean, so you stack in next to the boots and the tools. Concern about a further ticking off might prompt you to move them further from the door, out of sight. The intention is to deal with them later.

After a few weeks, you’re mowing the lawn, and when you’re done, you pull it to the side of the house, or maybe you just park it by the fence. And on it goes. Forgotten umbrellas, dripping hose pipes, burst balls, broken frisbees, abandoned DIY projects … your junk piles up. And if you have curious kids or pets, they occasionally move your stuff around as part of their yard games. Pests can migrate your junk too – magpies or stray rodent hoarders. Eventually, the yard becomes a messy, rank, potential health hazard.

Style and substance

Whether it’s a missive from the health department or a scary injury in one of the kids, you eventually decide to clear the yard. It’s becoming dangerous, and you don’t want to get sick – or get sued. Your first instinct might be to get rid of everything – just buy a big trash vat and dump it all out. Then you take a closer look around the yard and realise how expensive your tools are, and how attached you are to that old lawnmower.

So now you have to re-evaluate. What goes and what stays? A lot of that junk is beyond salvage. It’s been outside for months and is habitat for bugs and worms. Or maybe it’s sprouting some weird plant(?) matter that … seems to be … moving. Yeah, no, not worth the effort. Pile it up with all the other trash and dispose of it all. Plan your decluttering to coincide with trash day, just to make sure it doesn’t waste away in your driveway for days. Now you have stash of stuff you want to keep. Clean them according to type, tossing what you (safely) can in the dishwasher or washing machine.

Now you can erect a structure to house the important tools and items, preventing the yard from reverting to its earlier messy state. A garden shed is a good option. Building one from scratch will just recreate the mess in your yard, because no matter how good you are with your hands, these projects tend to drag. You’ll end up with random bits of wood, abandoned nails, and broken tools, taking you right back where you started. So instead, opt for a clean, minimalist PVC shed. They can be erected in hours, and come in gorgeously stylish colours.

More light, less mess

You’d be surprised how much value you can get out of a PVC shed in Gosford. The walls are easy to clean – just hose them down, no scrubbing needed. You might find yourself volunteering for extra cleaning sessions on balmy summer afternoons – it’s way more fun than a dip in the pool, you can keep your clothes on, and you won’t have to be reminded. Modern garden sheds generally come in a flat pack with clear instructions. You barely need any tools beyond your power drill, and your shed supplier can install it for you if you like.

They’re not boring sheds either. Apart from colour, you can select the type of roofing you want (there are options!) and you can choose regular doors or sliding ones. You can have gutters installed, for rain harvesting, and connect it to your rainwater tank. Skylights are a possible choice, to keep the shed lit up during the day. This cuts down power bills, because the average shed is dark and dreary. Not yours though.

And because keeping a tidy yard was its initial function, you can order storage shelves to keep it better organised. You can connect the plumbing and install an outdoor tap. Then next time you’re tempted to dump your garden tools, or when the house gets too noisy, just hide in the shed, hose them down, and place them on their designated hook or shelf. Win-win!