At a glance
- The tidiest way to store wheelie bins in a front garden is a low timber store sized to your bins: most UK households have a 240-litre bin at around 1.08m tall, 0.58m wide and 0.72m deep, so a single-bin store needs a little over half a metre of frontage and a side-by-side double around 1.2 to 1.3m.
- A bin store sits by your front door for years, so it has to look right from the street first and work hard second — the whole idea is that people see a handsome piece of the frontage, not the bins behind it.
- A lifting lid takes the daily rubbish from the top without opening anything else, and double or bi-fold front doors wheel the bins out on collection day - no door-wrestling on a narrow path.
- Colour is what makes a store belong to the house: smart standard shades, a Farrow & Ball finish, or a colour matched to your front door or railings.
- Keeping a bin store fresh is about a well-drained base and good airflow, not chemistry — get those right and smells and pests have nowhere to settle.
- When you have two or three bins, a recycling box or two, and nowhere obvious to put them, a bespoke store designed for the exact spot is the neatest answer.
Contents
- How Big a Wheelie Bin Store Do I Need?
- Start with the Frontage, Not the Bin Store
- How Do I Hide Wheelie Bins and Still Get Them Out on Collection Day?
- Making a Bin Store Beautiful — the Whole Point
- What Colour Should a Wheelie Bin Store Be?
- How Do I Stop a Bin Store Smelling or Attracting Pests?
- Do I Need Planning Permission for a Front-Garden Bin Store?
- When Does a Bin Store Call for Bespoke?
- Frequently Asked Questions
Wheelie bins are the least lovely thing in any front garden, and there is usually nowhere to hide them. They sit where the world can see them: by the gate, along the path, under the front window. So good wheelie bin storage has a job to do that most storage doesn't — it has to make the front of your house look better, not just tidier. The good news is that a bin store is easy to size before you buy, because UK wheelie bins come in a handful of standard footprints. Most households have a 240-litre bin, which is about 1.08m tall, 0.58m wide and 0.72m deep, so a store for a single bin needs a little over half a metre of frontage width, and a side-by-side double wheelie bin store needs roughly 1.2 to 1.3m once you allow for the timber and a working gap.
We're The Bike Shed Company, and we've been handmaking timber storage in Bristol since 2012. A bin store is where our way of working proves a point: that even the most thankless object in the garden deserves storage worth looking at. If you'd rather skip the reading, our Bin Store is here, or we're always glad to talk through a tricky frontage directly.
This guide walks through it the way we'd think it through with you: sizing first, then the frontage, then collection-day access, design, colour, keeping it fresh, the front-garden planning question, and when a bin store is worth doing bespoke.
How Big a Wheelie Bin Store Do I Need?
Start with the bins themselves, because their sizes are fixed and yours will tell you exactly how much frontage a store needs. UK domestic wheelie bins come in standard capacities, and the most common household size by a distance is the general-waste bin most councils issue, at roughly 0.58m across and 0.72m deep. A single bin needs a store a little wider and deeper again, once you add the thickness of the timber and a small gap so the bin lifts and rolls freely.
From there the arithmetic is simple. A double wheelie bin store — two bins side by side — wants somewhere around 1.2 to 1.3m of frontage width. If your council issues smaller bins (some, mostly in central London, use 140-litre or 180-litre bins, which are narrower), you'll fit the same store more easily. A larger 360-litre bin is wider and deeper again, at about 0.6m across and 0.9m deep, so it's worth measuring your own bins rather than assuming. Measure the bin lid closed, allow a few centimetres of clearance all round, and you have the internal size your store needs to be.
The practical upshot: don't guess. Ten minutes with a tape measure against your actual bins tells you whether a standard store fits or whether the frontage calls for something made to measure. Our Bin Store holds one to three standard wheeled bins and can be adapted to whatever combination of bins and boxes you're issued.
Start with the Frontage, Not the Bin Store
The usual instinct is to find a store you like and then work out where it goes. With bins, turn that around — the frontage sets the rules and the store has to answer them. A front garden is rarely a clean rectangle, and the bins have to live somewhere that keeps the path to the door clear and the collection route sensible.
Measure the usable ground and mark the fixed things you can't build over: the path, a bay window, a boundary wall or railing, a downpipe, the meter box, and the swing of any gate. Note where the collection point is, because a bin store works best near the kerb where the bins come out, not tucked round a corner you'll resent every week. And look at the sightlines — a store set to one side against a wall reads as part of the boundary; one parked in the middle of the frontage announces itself.
Get the frontage clear first, with real measurements and the bins counted, and the choice of store almost makes itself — which is why a store designed around a specific frontage always sits better than one bought on capacity alone.
How Do I Hide Wheelie Bins and Still Get Them Out on Collection Day?
The whole point of a bin store is to hide the bins without making them a chore to use, and the detail that decides this is how the store opens. Our Bin Store gives you two openings doing two different jobs. Day to day, you lift the lid and drop rubbish and recycling straight in — the doors stay shut, and nothing swings into a narrow path. On collection day, the double or bi-fold front doors open wide so the bin wheels out forwards, upright, exactly the way it went in — no wrestling a full bin over a lip on a wet Tuesday morning.
Where a store sits against a wall or a tight path, bi-fold doors keep the swing short and every centimetre of the footprint usable. A store that fights you on collection day is a store you'll stop using, however smart it looks.
That balance — hidden from view, effortless in use — is what separates a proper bin store from a box with a hole cut in it. Design it around the weekly routine and it disappears into the frontage the other six days.
Making a Bin Store Beautiful — the Whole Point
Because a bin store is always on show, design isn't a nice-to-have here — it's the entire idea. A store earns its place by doing one quiet thing: it stops reading as bin storage and starts reading as part of the house. That comes down to proportion and detail. A low, well-balanced store against a boundary wall settles into the frontage; a tall, boxy one near the gate stands out for the wrong reasons. Bin stores are naturally low, which is a gift — keep them long and level rather than tall, and they sit down into the garden.
Detailing is what you notice close up. The thickness of the boards, the way each panel is framed, whether the visible edges have been chamfered, whether the lid still closes cleanly years on — these are the difference between a store that flatters the house and one that lets it down. On every store we make, each panel and door is framed on all four sides with heavy-duty 50x50mm profiles, built from heavy boards with a deep-section tongue and groove, and we chamfer all the visible cut edges for a cleaner finish. It's care you feel rather than see, and it's why a timber store looks handsome where a moulded plastic one looks like what it is.
The aim, in a front garden especially, is for someone to walk past and admire the frontage without quite registering that part of it is where the bins live. That's the test we set ourselves — and it's the heart of what we mean by making storage beautiful.
What Colour Should a Wheelie Bin Store Be?
Colour is the single easiest way to lift a bin store from acceptable to right, and it's worth deciding early rather than treating it as an afterthought. The principle is simple: a store that picks up a colour already on the house belongs to the house; one left in a default brown reads as a shed by the gate. So look at your front door, your railings, your window frames, and let the store echo one of them.
We give you three routes. There's a range of smart standard colours, chosen to be handsome without being loud — a store shouldn't shout for attention on a frontage. There's a specialised finish in the Farrow & Ball colour of your choice, if you want the store to sit exactly against a particular scheme. And there's a full colour match to your railings or front door, so the store reads as a deliberate part of the entrance rather than an add-on. All of it is painted in-house by the same carpenters who build the store.
The choice costs nothing in space and changes everything in how the store sits on the street. A bin store painted to match the front door is one of those small decisions that makes a frontage look considered, and it's the sort of thing neighbours notice without quite knowing why.
How Do I Stop a Bin Store Smelling or Attracting Pests?
Keeping a bin store fresh is about how it's built and where it sits, not about anything you have to keep topping up. Two things do most of the work: a well-drained base and good airflow. A store that sits on wet ground traps damp, and damp is what turns ordinary bin smells into lingering ones — so a well-drained base underneath is essential. On top of that, we fit adjustable steel feet as standard, which lift the whole structure clear so the timber never sits in standing water; the feet are an addition to good drainage, not a substitute for it.
Airflow does the rest. A store that breathes a little lets odours disperse instead of building up, and keeps the interior drier between collections. Sound timber construction with clean, close-fitting panels also does something useful against pests: there are no flimsy gaps for foxes or rodents to work at, and the lid and doors close properly rather than gaping. Keeping the surrounding ground clear of banked soil and overhanging foliage helps too, everywhere against the store rather than just at the base, so nothing bridges up to the timber or holds moisture against it.
Do those few things — drain the base, let it breathe, keep the timber clear — and a bin store stays fresh and sound for years with almost no effort. It's ordinary good design rather than a maintenance routine, which is rather the point.
Do I Need Planning Permission for a Front-Garden Bin Store?
For most homes, a bin store in the front garden is not something to worry about. It's a small, low structure, and in fifteen years and many thousands of installations we've never heard of a customer being challenged over one. In practice, local authorities tend to be relaxed about modest, well-kept bin storage on a frontage.
There is a technical point worth understanding, handled plainly. Most garden buildings sit under permitted development, which is why a shed in a back garden usually needs no permission. A front garden is different, because Class E of the General Permitted Development Order 2015 doesn't cover a structure "situated on land forward of a wall forming the principal elevation" of the house — and a front-garden store is, by definition, forward of the main face of the house. Strictly speaking, then, permission can be required. The Planning Portal's guidance on outbuildings sets out the same principle. In everyday reality, a low bin store rarely draws any attention.
The one situation where it's genuinely worth a thought is a conservation area, where the rules are tighter and permission is more likely to be needed for anything on the frontage. If your home is in a conservation area or is listed, that's a conversation to have early. Otherwise, a handsome, low timber bin store is exactly the sort of thing that keeps a street looking cared for — and that's how it tends to be received.
When Does a Bin Store Call for Bespoke?
Most homes are served well by a standard store, and our Bin Store already flexes to hold one to three bins in different combinations. But front gardens are also where standard shapes most often run out of road, and a store built for the exact spot is sometimes the only tidy answer.
A bin store tends to call for bespoke when:
- You have several bins and boxes. Two or three wheelie bins plus recycling boxes and a food caddy is a lot to house neatly. A double wheelie bin store, or a triple, designed as one coherent run looks far better than a huddle of mismatched containers.
- The space is genuinely awkward. A sloping path, a narrow strip, a corner with a meter box or downpipe in the middle — standard rectangles struggle where a made-to-measure store simply fits.
- It needs to do more than hold bins. Room for a parcel box, garden tools or a recycling sorting area alongside the bins, designed into one store rather than three. Our wider garden storage range shows how much a well-designed store can absorb.
- The frontage is on full show. A period property or a street with strong character, where the store has to be exactly right to sit comfortably.
Bespoke isn't about paying more for its own sake — it's a store designed and built exactly for your frontage, your bins and your needs, by the same carpenters who make our standard range. Our bespoke service walks through how it works, and how a store built for one spot can turn the most awkward corner of a front garden into the tidiest.
Frequently Asked Questions
How big does a wheelie bin store need to be?
Size it to your bins. Most UK households have a 240-litre bin, which is about 1.08m tall, 0.58m wide and 0.72m deep, so a single-bin store needs a little over half a metre of frontage width plus the timber and a small clearance. A side-by-side double wheelie bin store needs roughly 1.2 to 1.3m. Measure your actual bins with the lid closed, allow a few centimetres all round, and you have the internal size the store needs to be.
How do I hide wheelie bins in a front garden?
Put them in a low timber store that reads as part of the frontage rather than a box by the gate. A lifting lid takes the daily rubbish without opening the doors, front doors wheel the bins out on collection day, and a colour matched to your front door or railings ties the store to the house. Site it to one side against a wall or boundary so the path stays clear, and it disappears into the garden while still being easy to use.
Can a bin store hold two or three bins?
Yes. Our Bin Store holds one to three standard wheeled bins and adapts to different combinations of bins and boxes. For two or three bins plus recycling boxes and a food caddy, a double or triple store designed as one run looks far tidier than separate containers — and where the frontage is awkward, a bespoke store is built to fit the exact space.
Do I need planning permission for a bin store in my front garden?
For most homes, no issue arises in practice — a low bin store rarely draws any attention, and we've never heard of a customer being challenged over one. Technically, structures forward of the front wall of the house sit outside standard permitted development, so permission can be required, but authorities are generally relaxed about modest bin storage. The exception is a conservation area or a listed building, where the rules are tighter and it's worth checking before you order.
How do I stop a wheelie bin store from smelling?
Keep the base well drained and let the store breathe. Damp ground traps odours, so a well-drained base is essential, and the adjustable steel feet we fit as standard lift the timber clear of standing water. Good airflow lets smells disperse between collections, and close-fitting timber panels keep pests out. Keep banked soil and overhanging foliage away from the store all round, and it stays fresh with almost no effort.
Where Next
A front garden asks a lot of its wheelie bin storage: it has to hide the bins, fit a tight and visible spot, stay easy to use on collection day, and look beautiful from the street. That's a job for a store sized to your bins and designed for your frontage, not bought on capacity alone.
To talk through your bins, your frontage and what would suit, our team's happy to help. Browse the Bin Store for the standard range, the wider garden storage collection for everything beyond bins, or the bespoke service for an awkward or particularly visible frontage.
Storage can be beautiful, even for the wheelie bins. Especially for the wheelie bins.