Water resistant and easy to clean, sheet vinyl is the ideal quick fix solution for tired-looking bathroom or kitchen floors – particularly if you don’t have the time, skills or money to lay a tiled floor.

The sub-floor should be clean, dry, stable and flat. If it’s concrete, use cememt mortar to fill any cracks or holes and allow it to dry thoroughly before continuing.

If the sub-floor is wooden, knock any protruding nails down with a hammer and nail punch.

Check that there are no wires or pipes underneath before screwing down any loose boards.

After acclimatising the vinyl to room temperature for a day or so, lay it on hardboard (rough side up) on top of the floorboards.

Leave at least 5cm excess around the edge of the room and use a block of wood to crease and cut it along the skirting boards before trimming off the excess.

Leave the vinyl for a few days to settle, then stick it securely at the doorways with vinyl tape.

Outdoors, hoe your flowerbeds to ward off weeds, take cuttings of dahlias and divide and replant overgrown clumps of primroses and polyanthus.

Plant up baskets with fuchsias and tender perennials and hang them in the greenhouse to develop. Continue forking over the soil between shrubs, teasing compost into the surface, and prepare areas for summer bedding plants.

If you have any gaps in borders plug with pots or sow quick-growing hardy annuals directly into the soil.