I'd considered boxes, but they won't work for what i want. Unfortunately quite a few of the items are too big to fit in any boxes and on top of that i prefer to be able to see everything, rather than having to look through boxes, so i'd prefer to just open doors and be able to see it all.

cheers for that, another person mentioned that and for some reason my mind just skipped right over cardboard as an option and thought wood was the cheapest, which obviously wasn't actually that cheap!

I'll certainly be looking for somewhere to get some large boxes/sheets that i can use.

Cheers for that, not sure why but i never considered corrugated cardboard as a "building" material, but there's no need for anything to be particularly sturdy as i'm the only one who'll be using them.

I'll have to do some searching and see if i can find somewhere to get large sheets/boxes i can use

I think you've somehow not understood what i said/what we're talking about here. They make sockets designed to be attached to the outside of your house, the actual socket is in a little weather proof box that you open, plug in whatever, then close it back over the plug to keep it safe from water etc... but the socet within that box is pretty much identical to one you would find inside a British home and you're using the same Brittish three pronged plugs into it with all the added safety benefits they give.

The problem with those, when it comes to christmas lights, is that christmas lights often have the transformer and/or the switch to control the pattern of the lights built into their plug, making the plug a lot bigger than the standard UK plug and the aformentioned external sockets are built to only accept a standard size plug, there's no extra room for a bigger than normal plug.

There would be nothing unsafe about plugging the lights into it, if only you could fit the cover down over it, they're just not made that way as the typical use for them is gardening tools etc... and to make the boxes bigger around the socket would cost them more money and reduce profits only to benefit a very small part of their potential market.

This was pretty much what stopped me fitting an exterior socket. I was looking at fitting one so that I could place the lights exactly as I wanted without having to run leads into my garage and to also make placing the lights with stupidly short leads easier.

However, when I looked into it every single outside socket had very small covers/boxes that were only designed to take a basic plug, with some apparently not really fitting those very well, and not a single one was big enough to take the transformer normally found on Christmas light plugs.

The only solution I found was what's been posted, to fit an exterior socket, plug an extension lead into that then use one of those outdoor boxes to house the extension and plug the lights into that, but doing all that was going to lead to more wires and things looking messier than just doing it the way I've done previously.

How would that solve the issue? The only hardware that works with the toilet, is the type shown, hence why it's being used, and the toilet seat isn't anything to do with the cause of the problem, and before you suggest it, no, I'm not getting a new toilet.

nope, the entire black part goes "inside" the toilet.