Friday Finery: treehouse garden office

This week, a delightful treehouse garden office from treehouse specialists Cheeky Monkey.

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Friday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

Garden studios at at Malvern Spring Festival 2024

While Chelsea is the biggest beast of the garden show season, there are plenty more great shows elsewhere around the county which showcase interesting garden offices and garden buildings. Here are a couple from this year's Malvern Spring Festival (May 9 - 12) featuring models from Malvern Garden Buildings.

Pictured top is Concrete 2.0, a show garden from garden designer Ian McBain of Tythorne Garden Design which features the company's Flat Roof Studio. With eco-friendliness and reclaimed/recycled materials at its heart, the garden is designed for a young professional couple and who also want to work from home in a garden office. “The paving is purposely shaped to lead towards the studio, and the planting has been designed so that it will ‘ground’ the building and surround it with texture, colour and interest,” said Ian. “I really like the clean and contemporary feel of the garden studio. It is an attractive, practical and comfortable space, perfect for the Concrete 2.0 garden.”

Also worth looking out for is the Grand Appeal Garden (pictured above) from Bristol garden designers  Suzy Dean and Isabel Devaney of Ammil Garden Design Studio who will be making use of a bespoke Woodland Lodge for their family-friendly creation. According to Suzy: “The garden building helps to bring a family together surrounded by nature, whatever the season and whatever challenges they may be facing. It’s their safe haven. The barn style cladding and shingle roof really complement the rustic woodland styling of the garden. The inside is cosy, while the veranda allows you to be immersed in the garden whatever the weather.”

 

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Wednesday posts are sponsored by Booths Garden Studios, the UK's No.1 supplier of zero maintenance and portable garden studios

 

 

 

Beautiful Proctor & Shaw garden studio

The Shedworking interns saw this property in Clapham, London, advertised on Wilfords and were naturally immediately taken with the view of the back garden. The garden office pictured actually mirrors the style of the oak bay window in this rear room, and is in a pleasant south-facing garden with fire pit and lawn. It's on at around the £2 million mark, but then you also get a five-bedroom house built around 1910 and sensitively redesigned by awardwinning architects Proctor & Shaw thrown in to sweeten the deal.

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Malvern Garden Buildings offer a premium collection of garden buildings, displayed at 11 UK showsites.

New 'Young Sheddie' category introduced for 2024 Shed of the Year

The 18th iteration of the world's leading shed competition Shed of the Year is now open for entries with a brand new category, Young Sheddie of the Year.

This means that those aged 18 - 25 can share the sheds they have bought to life, whether used for work, play, or a place to chill. Young Sheddie of the Year is also an opportunity to showcase creations brought to life by multiple generations in the family.

The new category is one of seven that entrants can pick to be in with the chance of winning an all-new prize. Alongside £1,000 in cash and £250 worth of Cuprinol products, this year’s winner will also be awarded an exclusive overnight stay in a relaxing nature resort. 

Head judge and founder of the competition Uncle Wilco said: “It will be very fascinating to see how the upcoming summer of sport events might inspire the entries in our pub and entertainment category. We’ve seen a growing number of participants using recycled materials and making more sustainable choices when it comes to creating their sheds – these are factors we’ll consider closely as we select finalists for the Nature’s Haven category this year.
 
“I’m also extremely excited to see the submissions in our new category. Last year, we crowned Archie Proudfoot our winner – he submitted his shed [pictured top] into the then-recently introduced Most Colourful Shed category. His fresh approach and vibrant use of colour made him a worthy winner.”

Cuprinol Creative Director, Marianne Shillingford added: “We’re equally excited to introduce the Cuprinol Young Sheddie of the Year category to the 2024 competition. It’s a fabulous way for the younger generation to express their unique personalities and unleash their creativity on a grand scale; this is our opportunity to meet the artists and architects of tomorrow!”
 
Categories for Cuprinol Shed of the Year 2024 include:
    1.    Young Sheddie of the Year
    2.    Most Colourful Shed
    3.    Simple but Effective
    4.    Budget
    5.    Unexpected/Unique
    6.    Cabin or Summerhouse
    7.    Nature’s Haven
    8.    Pub or Entertainment
    9.    Workshop or Studio

Entries for this year’s competition will close at midnight on May 31, 2024.

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Monday posts are sponsored by Cosy Garden Rooms, the UK's No. 1 bespoke garden room designer and builder.

Woodlands Home & Garden Group open a new distribution hub in Scotland

Specialist garden building manufacturer and retailer Woodlands Home & Garden Group has opened a new warehouse, distribution and sales hub in Scotland. The 40,000 sq.ft site is located in Glenrothes, Fife, and is part of Woodlands' development plans as it looks to expand its operation across the whole of Scotland.

The new hub will be managed by Chris Devanny who has extensive experience within the garden building market. In addition to overseeing the 22,000 sq.ft warehouse and distribution facility, he will also lead the development of sales, service, and installation operations across Scotland.

The Glenrothes site will also house a new Tiger garden building franchise, opening in partnership with Anchor Timber Buildings, which will house over 110 garden buildings in an 18,000 sq.ft indoor display area.  The showsite in Glenrothes has been operated by Anchor for over 40 years, and having established a successful reputation across the region, they took the decision to partner exclusively with Tiger earlier this year to help with their growth.

Ross Moran, Chief Executive at Woodlands Home & Garden Group said: “We are delighted to get this deal over the line and the opening of a new hub in Glenrothes provides us with the opportunity to further develop our sales growth and service across the whole of Scotland which we believe is a really important and exciting region for us. We have worked successfully with Anchor for many years, so the appointment of Chris as our General Manager not only ensures continuity for all our customers, but also provides the business with a highly experienced and ambitious individual.

“The new Tiger franchise is also another significant step forward for Tiger’s offline strategy, which is creating a network of franchise-operated locations across the UK to complement our existing online success and build on our position as the UK’s market leader in garden buildings."

The new showsite is located at Anchor Timber Buildings, Unit 8a Boston Road, Viewfield Industrial Estate, Glenrothes, Fife KY6 2RE and is open from 8am until 4.30pm on Monday to Friday and 9am until 3pm on Saturday. 

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Friday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

The average UK worker will spend £1,964 a year by returning to work full-time, says new research

New figures from personal finance comparison site finder.com suggest that the average commuter in the UK could spend £1,964 a year on returning to the office, roughly 7% of the average salary.

Finder calculated the average cost of commuting to and from work and buying lunch, to find out how much a worker could expect to pay if they returned to the office five days a week. They found that the average worker would spend an additional £1,964 per year on commuting and lunch costs on returning to the office full-time.

In London, this figure rises to 9.4% of average take-home pay, with workers in the capital expected to spend £3,076, with £2,206 of this figure attributable to commuting costs.

Employees in Yorkshire and The Humber would lose an average of 6.7% of their annual take-home salary, followed by the West Midlands at 6.6% then the North West and East Midlands (6.5%), and the South West and North East (6.4%).

Those in the South East and Wales would sacrifice an average of 6.3% of their salary by returning to the office full-time. In the East of England workers could expect to lose around 6.2% of their take home salary, and in Scotland, 6%.

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 Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master: garden offices and   

 studios to fit any size garden. Top quality contemporary or traditional

 buildings.

Multi-purpose garden office

 

 

A recent build from Cosy Garden Rooms underlines the flexibility of garden buildings. Pictured above is the 5m × 3.5m design, composite clad in soft green Hardie board with UPVC anthracite doors and windows, a front overhang with remote sensor LED lighting, double sliding doors, and a bathroom partition.

 

Here's what the customer said about it: "We love it. It is used as occasional guest accommodation but the bed is swapped out with a settee, etc, when not being used. Then it becomes an extra living space. And I have also used it as an office so it’s definitely multi purpose."

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Wednesday posts are sponsored by Booths Garden Studios, the UK's No.1 supplier of zero maintenance and portable garden studios