shed question (yawn, i know - please help anyway!)

[SparkyUK]

We currently are using a broken old metal shed that we inherited when we bought the property. There is no door on the front, and the gutters don't work, and the whole thing looks way way past its prime. We are trying to think of how to build something to use the space to the side of the house better, give us more storage and not look nearly as crap. Also, I'd like to collect rain water from the roof. (We are in a listed building so can't collect off of main roof as the gutters are cast iron and can't be altered.)

We need to store garden tools, things like plant food and seeds, a few electric tools like small push lawn power, strimmer, and bikes. We thought the simplest would be to use the corner of the new fence and build an open sided strucutre off of this. The roof would be about 5m x 1.75m and just be on a gentle slope into a gutter which drained into a water butt. The long open side would be a half meter off the garage, so not very exposed, but I'm still concerned about general moisture in the air. We could keep hand tools in plastic bins, but I'm worried about the elctrical tools and bikes. What do you all think - is an open sided shed a recipe for disaster?

Not a disaster, maybe, but you'd constantly be battling the effects of damp. Not only could that cause problems with the electrical equipment, you'd probably find that seeds went mouldy and any granular plant food would turn into rock-solid lumps. To be frank, a 5 metre-long lean-to does not sound like a very attractive companion to a listed building.

Have you got a particular reason for not wanting a shed? There are some very smart sheds around these days - some examples here.

A disaster all round, for bikes, electricals and seeds. Sorry.

I don't think I'm quite describing it right, but the space is completey hidden from both the street (by fences) and most of the garden (as it is recessed along the side of house in a side return). I had in mind a covered area like this (only much smaller obv.) . I had thought that anything small would be in plastic storage bins arranged on shelves, but the larger things I can't think how to waterproof. Was nice and dry yesterday but now that its howling with rain again, I remember just how wet the air can be!

The reason we didn't want a shed was a. because it is a large (possible bespoke) size and can't afford to buy something for that size at the mo but also don't have the skills or time to build something suitable. b. I'm worried about ventilation as have read that you need a meter or so around a shed to allow air to circulate and keep it and the contents dry. c. we wanted to have a sink and waterbutts along the side of the hoouse but can't have them inside the shed so that would mean the shed would have to be a lot smaller. Hmm, maybe I need to look at some combination of a shorter shed and bike storage shed aranged L-shape.

We had a similar problem as at the end of a long renovation.We lost the will and money to renovate our storage area[an old air raid shelter i think].So dh ended up buying the plastic green storage sheds from B&Q.They are waterproof and are easy to put together and relatively cheap-but admittedly not very beautiful.The only thing is you wan't be able to collect water from them.The only other alternative is maybe to look on freecycle or a local furniture recycling space to find one that will fit.