Amazingly, the walls went up in no time.

The windows were already fitted in the prefabricated walls. All we had to do was to choose where each window panel would be located. There wasn't that much of  a tricky choice; one either side and one at the back seemed the logical way to arrange three windows.

As you can see from the photo, we brought the 'smoke collector' inside the walls at this point on advice of the instructional video. If it didn't end up inside before the last wall was joined, it would have to be lifted over the top to get it where it needed to be!

Sweating the small (but important) stuff and getting started with building

I spend one more weekend fretting over the frame. I was convinced the frame that had been supplied with the prefabricated kit was not as strong as I would want it to be.

The system I decided to use to ground and support the building was fairly substantial and I decided the 4 x 1'' frame was not going to make me happy and I made a brand new frame in pressure-treated 4 x 2'' construction grade timber.

The decision was partly because I had decided to elevate the frame to 4'' above the ground. I felt the base frame needed to be stronger because it was going to be supported above ground by 12 heavy-duty stainless steel posts. There was a post attached at each point of the hexagon and one more inbetween, halfway along each side.

This would keep the whole structure well away from the ground and the risk of water damage to the floor. It would also provide a free flow of air from outside. More about that later.


When everything was level, and I was happy with the stability of the frame, I adjusted each of the 'jacks' in situ. It took some time to get it just right and I walked around the frame over and over again, checking that everything was level and ready to accept the metric tonne of timber that this hexagon was going to support.

There was absolutely no movement in the frame once the giant nuts had been turned down, along the length of each pile, to meet the ground.

Getting ready for the following weekend meant assembling some essential kit. One of the most important pieces of kit was protective gloves. With a lot of lifting to do, it was important to protect our hands.

 Moving on with the build...

It was now late November and the ground was beginning to get wet and muddy, so we used plastic covers on the ground to protect the timber sections from getting dirty or wet.

 It was time to take the plunge and begin placing those sections on the painstakingly-levelled base frame. Oh yes, we were about to get started.

YouTube and my dad to the rescue

The gap that existed between the finished build and the distinct lack of detailed instructions was quickly remedied through a few internet searches. It turned out there were lots of sketchy schematics out there, all similar to what we already had. But there were some YouTube videos with helpful Finland nationals demonstrating how to out together a hut not dissimilar to ours. The commentary is priceless and I know how to say 'Grillkota' properly as a result of repeated views.

If I had been an accomplished carpenter, I would have probably breezed through making sense of the drawings because I would have brought experience and practical knowledge to the task. But I was worried about making mistakes that would perhaps ruin the project altogether. What I didn't know at this stage as that there would be a few idiosyncrasies to deal with along the way, beginning with the mismatched instructions - use four 60mm screws to join the parts together, matched with a drawing of three screws in situ - and ending with some odd pieces of timber that we didn't ever manage to find a use for in the construction. There were quite a few differences between the prefabricated building I was about to start putting together and the kit in the videos I found.

The floor was going to be a headache because it was completedly absent from the instructions. The assumption was that the six floor sections would just sit neatly on the ground, fitting the perfect hexagon created by the building. How to fit the 'smoke collector' was another omission from the instructions.

This was a moment when I needed advice, so I got in touch with someone I knew had years of carpentry and DIY building: my dad. A flurry of emails began and I weighed up various iterations and possibilities. In the end, I had to go with the most practical and possible idea to stay within budget. That meant doing it myself.

The type of ground was an important consideration as the spot I was building on is prone to puddles in the winter months. I did not want the hut to be sitting in water at any point. I was keen to keep it high and dry.


The system I finally settled on was the Quick Jack. This was a set of stainless steel posts that I drove into the ground. Each one was fixed to the base. Once levelled up on all sides, the oversized nuts (I am reliably informed that this is what they are!) were turned down to meet the ground, securing each post at the correct height. I become mildly obsessed with this; I wanted to get it right. There was no point to setting out with a foundation that was not level because anything built on it would be unbalanced and nothing would meet up properly, especially as the building's roof was added.

This is the system I used. In the combination of components selected for our building, it is guaranteed to hold 3 metric tonnes!

Starting from the ground and working up!

This was going to be a feature in our garden, hopefully for years to come.
It was going to be a project that we would work on together; I certainly couldn't do it alone. There needed to be at least two to work on the walls and at least three to get the roof sections up and into place.

In early November, the whole thing arrived on the back of a truck and was packed away into the garage that had been cleared for this very purpose.

The bicycles had to move to make way for the metric tonne of timber and metal that arrived. It was a tight fit to get everything inside. This was when I had my first misgiving; I wondered if it was goling to be too heavy to handle and too big a project for a distinctly amateur DIYer with basic carpentry skills. I did have a lot of optimism, determination and a can do attitude. I also had family who believed I could do it and I believed we would somehow manage to put this giant IKEA meets Meccano meets Lego construction kit together into an aesthetically-pleasing and fully-functioning Finlandian Grill Hut.

I took one look at the scrawny instructions and decided it was time to start watching YouTube videos. Someone will have done this before. Somebody will have made a helpful video showing me how to do it, step by step...surely.

Burn and flatten!

Hacking, smashing, slashing and burning!

There were tree roots to get rid of. Researching the best ways to destroy roots led me to the conclusion that cutting off the roots and burning the core at the centre was the best way to make sure the tree would not be likely to regenerate...ever again.

We took the tree stumps down to the ground, built a wigwam of twigs, branches and set fire to them. Repeatedly burning the stumps reduced them to a lightly-smoking circle of white ash.


This left a stubborn problem; uneven and lumpy ground that didn't lend itself to providing an even, level surface for the foundations of the new build. Without a solid, flat surface, the hut-build was going nowhere.

Moving from the idea to a reality

So here was the idea....

...and it had started to become possible through eBay and some careful research.

This was how the hut was going to look... minus the Wendy House curtains and various extras.

If you are thinking of building one of these, you'll find there are many versions available, some with added luxury extras. You might really want to have all the extras, or you might want to take a trip to IKEA or Dunelm to choose your own soft furnishings, lights, rugs or extras. It depends on your budget and how much you are willing to spend. If a reindeer-hide or sheepskin rug or two appeals to you, these can be bought online, as can wooden tankards or Viking drinking-horns. More on that subject later.

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The work begins...

So that was October 2016. A few weeks later I started to research where to buy a Grill Hut. It quickly became clear that a build-it-yourself option was going to be affordable for us.

Having set a budget (almost certainly to be exceeded) I went about finding out what I would need to be able to build a hut at home. It began with choosing where the hut would be built and that meant we had to clear a space.

A corner of the garden looked perfect as a location. Three trees had to go to make room for the new build. One was a very old and unproductive apple tree that had had a stay of execution for sentimental reasons; we felt sorry for it. The lack of blossom in the Spring and the absence of apples in the Autumn was one thing, the increasing rot that was moving steadily through the tree trunk was the ultimate proof that it needed to go.

The other two were overgrown fruit trees that were not well-suited to coastal East Anglian heavy clay soil that becomes waterlogged in winter months.

Making a rough estimate of the overall size of the hut showed us how much space it was likely to take up.

 With Simon at work with an axe and a new blade on the saw, the trees came down fast and a lot of smoky material was created for bonfire night.