Coppice Sauna

Shepherd's hut specialist Plankbridge still produce a marvellously elegant shepherd's hut, but in recent years as regular Shedworking readers know the Dorset-based hutters have expanded their offering into other hut-shaped builds such as tack rooms and garden privvies.

This new offering, the Coppice Sauna, comes in at at 2m x 2m, and is clad in black-painted timber (inside it's Scandinavian aspen lining), coming with a large window and glazed door. As you'd expect there is a two-tiered timber seating inside with an 8kw electric stove, a spruce ceiling, and fully insulated 70mm wall cavity to ensure a smashing sauna experiece.

It also comes in an off-grid version, fitted with a wood-fired sauna unit and solar panels. Decking is an optional extra.

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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

 

The Philosophy of Sheds is published today

Available everywhere good books are sold, ideally from your local independent bookseller, and online at the likes of Blackwells. It's published by those fine folk at the British Library who have this to say about it:

At a time when it feels like every year buildings get larger and more impersonal, sheds remain a beacon of ergonomic simplicity. Maybe it's the nostalgia of the ancient huts from which humanity evolved, or the sense of focused calm produced by shutting yourself away in one, but around the world and across generations we have found comfort in our sheds. They are wooden repositories for our inner lives: cheap, multifunctional spaces ready to be filled with the passions, tools and ideas of the individual.

In these pages you'll find rotating sheds, sheds on wheels and holy sheds, as Alex Johnson uncovers the universal lure of these tiny structures. Also detailed are some of the big ideas these little huts have birthed, from inventions and philosophies to literature, art and increasingly eccentric answers to the question: what exactly can a shed be? The Philosophy of Sheds also includes a gazetteer of famous and unique sheds of the world and is illustrated with archival imagery from the British Library collections.

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Monday's posts are sponsored by Smart Modular Buildings, the UK's best garden room company

Friday Finery: Writer's Retreat

An idyllic treehouse writer's retreat by Richmond Bell Architects with a a frameless window which has an extremely distracting view and a total floor area of 18m² . Sustainable larch from Dorset is used inside and out with a cedar shingle roof, and reclaimed chapel floorboards were used for the bookcase wall. There's a hidden door behind the bookcase leading on to a wraparound raised walkway.

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

A Wagon in the Woods by James Aldred

One for The Shedworker's Bookshelf, this is former winner of the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing James Aldred's account of restoring an old horse-drawn wagon in which he played as a child in the New Forest 40 years previously. It also looks at the natural history of the forest, the Romani families who used to live there, and present day inhabitants including otters and goshawks (Aldred is a wildlife cameraman who has worked closely with David Attenborough who celebrates his 100th birthday next week the day after this book is published).

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Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master, bespoke garden rooms and offices designed, manufactured and installed throughout the UK 

Green roof pioneer Nigel Dunnett dies at 63

The Shedworking team was sorry to hear of the death over the weekend of horticulturalist and writer Nigel Dunnett. We have featured several of Nigel's Chelsea Flower Show creations over the years, and reviewed his marvellous book Small Green Roofs which featured many garden offices and other shedlike atmospheres when it came out in 2011 from Timber Press (sadly it's now out of print but still available secondhand) with helpful practical 'how to' sections. The green roof movement and biodiversity was one of his passions, establishing the first trials of them in the UK, and writing what is 

We are sad to hear of the passing of Nigel Dunnett who was a key figure in UK Green Roof research and teaching, and wrote what is believed to be the first book in English on the subject, with Noel Kingsbury, Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls, also a Timber Press publication.

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Monday's posts are sponsored by Smart Modular Buildings, the UK's best garden room company

 

 

Friday Finery: Garden library

This week's Finery is the marvellously idyllic garden library/writing shed of novelist Ova Ceren who also runs the extremely popular BookTok and Instagram channels @excusemyreading where you can find lots more atmospheric images of the interior and exterior.

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

 

Retirement garden study

It's never too late to get a garden office. Here's an example from Eden Garden Rooms of a bespoke 5.35m x 3.45m reading room-come-office with patio seating area outside for retired clients in Cobham, Surrey, to enjoy their delightful garden.

Built on the footprint of an old summerhouse that had seen better days, features include plent of desk and storage space, two floor to ceiling windows on the sides of a central set of French doors, a small letterbox window for additional light and ventilation, a slim panel heater and oak effect laminate flooring. The whole thing is clad in cedar with integrated spotlights on the canopy.

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Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master, bespoke garden rooms and offices designed, manufactured and installed throughout the UK