Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Garden office without walls...


A fabulous shedworkingless atmosphere from HGTV whose designer Kelly Deck turned journalist Susie Wall's garden into a real garden office, as the picture shows...

Here's what they say: "Kelly took inspiration from the indoor office, which had a soothing, Asian-influenced vibe. The driftwood and cream-coloured bowl on the desk are from the indoor office and are two of Susie's favourite things. She also had a small water feature indoors as she find the sound of running water relaxing under stress, so Kelly added a Buddha-themed water feature at the back. The white boards hanging on the fence are magnetic so papers can be attached and won't blow away." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monday, July 30, 2012

Cedar cladding: before and after


Cedar cladding which has been revived by Alternative Space. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Olympic cauldron built in a shed


Thomas Heatherwick who designed the cauldron for the London Olympic Games' opening ceremony last night already has an impressive list of shedworking credits so it seems fitting that the cauldron which really brought the house down at the end of the extravaganza was built in a shed.

He told the press: "It is like the biggest gadget that anyone can make in a shed but this shed is the most sophisticated shed in Harrogate. It was like the Bond gadget workshop."

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Friday, July 27, 2012

Tipiworking


I built this during a couple of idle hours this afternoon at the bottom of the garden with the rest of the Shedworking staff. Maybe not ideal for winter shedworking, but quite pleasant for a part time summer garden office.
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Thursday, July 26, 2012

Before and after garden office



Damian Fennell is writing up the story of building his own garden office sculpture/drawing studio on his blog at http://artfennell.tumblr.com - here are the before and (planned) after shots of the build.

"I used to be a practising sculptor with a truly resplendent studio in Fulham," he says. "The usual life challenges led me out of it and into a full time commercial job. As jobs go, it's great, but if I don't keep alive the faltering flame of art I'm going to become a miserable shell of a man. The plan is to build a studio in my garden at home. I want to involve the kids in my passion and they can teach me how creativity really works.  I held a fire-sale of artworks and raised far more funds than I had dared hope - it's enough to buy the materials for a decent studio but I'll have to build it with my bare hands.  I'm happy with the design now, and putting in a planning application shortly. Fingers crossed..."
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Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Rotunda Living


Rotunda Living is now up and running for those of you with a penchant for circular shedworking. Pictured above and below is their first 4m pod, modelled by the company's founder Gemma Roe and her new baby, which you can now see at their show site in Knutsford (and on their Facebook page)

Gemma says the aim is to produce "ecologically friendly circular micro-buildings and garden rooms for your mind, body and soul". They're partially inspired by the Mongolian Yurt but are designed as holistic ‘pods’ for yoga, meditation and feng shui purposes ("circular buildings naturally promote the flow of positive energy and are beautiful, restful spaces in which to spend your time," says Gemma).

The pods have a central rooflight dome and are circular, timber framed, fully insulated buildings with an estimated natural lifespan of more than 50 years. They come in various sizes from the micro-3m diameter garden studio to the 6m or 8m diameter with options such as a log burning stove, seedum roofing, reed bed water filtration systems, solar panels and bespoke storage and furniture. Larch, oak and sweet chestnut are locally sourced.

"We believe that our built environment affects our psychology on a daily basis and can certainly affect our well-being on both a physical and emotional level," says Gemma. "Our human connection with round buildings is hard-wired into our subconscious; round is a familiar and soothing shape in nature, from birds nests and unfurling ferns to the swirling events in our atmosphere. Our ancient Ancestral homes were round and beautiful. Yurts, igloos, wigwams and tipis."




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Tuesday, July 24, 2012

SHËD: Build your own designer garden office for less than £2,500

Longstanding readers of Shedworking will know all about Dominic Jones's One Grand Designs garden office which was a, very worthy, winner of the Garden Office category of Shed of the Year 2010. Now Dominic - who blogged about the experience at http://www.onegranddesigns.com/ - has put together an excellent ebook (more details here) which walks you through the process of building your own decent quality garden office on a low budget, including plans and nice images.

"I fully intend the book to be a work in progress," he says, "it goes hand in hand with the forum for builders at gardenofficeplans.com/forum and as questions are asked, answers given and other builders' experiences recounted, then they will become a part of the book to help other builders complete their dream garden office."

You can download a sample and buy the book at https://leanpub.com/diygardenoffice and if you're thinking of doing a DIY garden office, I can't recommend it too strongly. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monday, July 23, 2012

Growing a global village of sheds

This is the One-Sqm-House by architect Van Bo Le-Mentzel, founder of Hartz IV Möbel. Christine McLaren in a blog post for the BMW Guggenheim Lab looks at how they're spreading the word about living and working small.

Here's what she says: "For those considering a stay in the One-Sqm-House, I can personally testify that these structures are perfectly sleep-worthy. Upright, they make for a cozy little mobile office or shop. Laid on their side they provide, perhaps not five-star accommodation, but close enough when it comes to value per, well, square meter."

 The game plan is to build an entire village of them... -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Barford Shepherdhut and photo archive open day

The fine people behind Historic Shepherdhuts ("A web based archive dedicated to recording Historic Shepherds Hut survivors and the forgotten part they once played in our Country's rich Agricultural past") are opening their doors to the public in September.

The 12th century St Botolphs church in Barford and their nearby 19th century Barford shepherd's hut which sits in their garden at Church lane will be taking part in the National Heritage Open Days open day organised in the Norwich area by Norwich Heritage & Economic Regeneration Trust. Their shepherd hut, which was rescued in a derelict state in 2003 and restored over a two year period was also voted number six in the Radio 4 'History of the World in 100 objects' (non-museum) section. A selection of photographs of some of the 350 huts they have recorded will be on display, as well as details of many of the local manufacturers in the region.

They are also hoping that Nancy Clemance from the Hut Living project will be attending over the weekend. Hut Living is a National Lottery supported oral history project run in conjunction with Bridport Museum which provides the opportunity for people with experience of using shepherds' huts to record their memories. For younger visitors there is a competition to build a model shepherd hut from a card template with a small prize for the best two awarded at the end of the weekend.

The Shepherd hut and archive will be open between 10am and 12.30 and 2pm-4pm on September 6 and 7, then 10am-4pm on September 8 and 9. Admission to both venues will be free on the day. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Have a nose around Scott's and Shackleton's huts


View Larger Map
 Google's Street View thingy has expanded to take in the iconic antarctic huts of Scott and Shackleton. Here's what they say about it:
"With this technology, you can go inside places like Shackleton’s Hut and the other small wooden buildings that served as bases from which the explorers launched their expeditions.They were built to withstand the drastic weather conditions only for the few short years that the explorers inhabited them, but remarkably, after more than a century, the structures are still intact, along with well-preserved examples of the food, medicine, survival gear and equipment used during the expeditions. Now anyone can explore these huts and get insight into how these men lived for months at a time."
Via that other shedblog ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Shed provides accommodation for the Olympics

Not wanting to miss out on the money-making opportunities of the Olympics, Tricia Jones has found an ingenious way of making money from the space in her garden.

For the duration of the games she has turned her shed into a mini-sporting stadium where guests can stay for just £40 per night. Based in Leytonstone which boarders the Olympic park, Tricia’s fully furnished shed – patriotically painted with the Union Flag – features a bed, Olympic memorabilia, a heater and a mini fridge, and the garden is kitted out with sporting equipment. Sports fans can test out their best poses on the mini running track or experience the thrill of carrying a replica Olympic torch. There are gold, silver and bronze medals which can be awarded on a life-size winners’ podium.

Wimdu host Tricia Jones said: “I have a long-term lodger in my house so I couldn’t get involved with renting out my spare room during the Olympics, but I got a bit creative and started thinking outside the box – or outside the house I should say! I thought the shed would be a fun way for tourists to really embrace the Games; after all, I don’t think there are many hotel rooms that come with winner’s podiums!”

Wimdu is a social accommodation community that brings together travellers and hosts from around the world to enable consumers worldwide to travel like a local. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Hebridean garden room



Lynn Fotheringham from InsideOut Buildings has been filling us in about the build for this garden office on Islay for clients in Port Ellen.

"It was quite an expedition cum InsideOut holiday," she says. "Our foreman brought his daughter so that they could explore the island in their spare time and Gordon and I also stayed for a week, right next to the Lagavulin distillery. Angela, our lorry driver, worrried for weeks because I told her she would have to reverse onto the ferry. I was wrong. Though we were almost banned from the ferry because we were carrying gas canisters for the nail guns. We managed to persuade Calmac at the last minute that we would be a bit lost without them.

"You will see from the photo that the larch cladding, which can be seen on buildings throughout Scotland, is silvering faster than usual because the garden room is heavily exposed to sea breezes and Scottish gales." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monday, July 16, 2012

Tim Minchin sings Leonard Cohen in a shed

Tim Minchin at Songs from the Shed's temporary shed at Larmer Tree Festival with his cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Olympic guest house shed

Mark Burton of Custom Built Surrey has been in touch to tell us of a client who has a brother travelling to the UK for the Olympics. He has found it hard to get a decently priced hotel room so the client ordered a summerhouse on wheels from Mark as extra accommodation which will then be taken with them when they relocate to Yorkshire later in the year and used as a summerhouse and garden office. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

ManSpace magazine

While we promote shedworking as an equal opportunties possibility, the concept of the 'mancave' is still a very popular one. We're indebted to Uncle Wilco for pointing us in the direction of ManSpace Magazine which caters for this market and aims to be "a celebration of what men get up to in their spare time. From collections and hobbies, through to exotic sheds, glorious garages and man caves. ManSpace Magazine is the only magazine that taps into the personal stories and passions that make men tick; as well as providing tips and advice on how to make better use of their ‘space’." It's a 100-page quarterly and you can get an online taster version of it here. ---------------------------------------------------
Saturday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Olympic shedworking



If you'd like to watch the Olympics from your garden office, you can of course simply do it on television or via iThingy.

However, if you'd like to watch it first hand, you can also do that from this 1928 beach hut at West Weares, Portland, which is currently up for sale on ebay at around £75,000 freehold. From this original wooden fisherman's hut, you can watch the Olympic sailing events and enjoy tip top views of Chesil Beach and Lyme Bay.
It's nicely furnished inside with a lavatory, gas cooker, electricity generator, water stand pipe, patio and all furniture, fixtures and fittings in the photograph above. The hut itself measures 4.2m x 2.3m. -----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Thursday, July 12, 2012

How to heat your garden office with cans

More details at faircompanies.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Wednesday, July 11, 2012

The joy of garden offices

A lovely description of why shedworking is the way forward. Read more about this shed's life on Twitter at @Docuden ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Festival Stories from the shed(s)


Shedworking’s Literary Editor, Sarah Salway, joined a team of writers to record the stories and events at the music festival, Lounge on the Farm over the weekend,working appropriately out of a shed.

The writers, Sonia Overall, Greg Klerkx, Betty Herbert, Neil Baker, Will Sutton and Sarah Salway, were part of the Re-authoring team, an initiative designed to “seek new ways to reinvigorate the reader’s encounter with the author”. Over the three days at the festival, the writers posted stories and photographs on a variety of different social media, wrote stories on post-it notes, on cards that were then pinned to the shed, collected words for songs accompanied by a ukulele, handwrote stories on coffee cup sleeves, and crowdsourced poems.

Next to the Reauthoring shed, there was a confession booth run by Betty Herbert, author of 52 Seductions, and on the other side, in a matching shed, Workers of Art were collecting wise words from festival goers for the upcoming Wise Words festival in Canterbury in October. You can add your own advice on the Wise Words public forum.

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Monday, July 09, 2012

10 best beach huts for sale

There's a nice roundup of beach huts for sale by Graham Norwood in the Daily Telegraph. Pictured above is a rather nice example of an old fasthioned bathing hut from Artisan Huts -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Smart Garden Offices buy The Home Office Company


We reported earlier in the year that The Home Office Company was up for sale and have just learnt that Charlie Dalton's Smart Garden Offices has bought them.

"I've admired the Home Office Company range for many years," he says, "so I'm now rather pleased that we have now completed the agreement to take over the ownership of this excellent product range. The Home Office buildings have a classic and refined beauty, and like our existing Smart range, are hugely adaptable for a wide range of applications; office, studio, pool room, garden room or even as a stand alone conservatory. I was surprised to have seen The Home Office Company come up for sale earlier this year, but because of the history, design, customer satisfaction and product this business is the perfect fit for us."

He added that The Home Office Company buildings will now be manufactured in Smart's dedicated Suffolk factory alongside the Smart range but that the brand will trade entirely separately as a fully independent business -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Saturday, July 07, 2012

Shed Song by Portico Quartet

More about the band here.
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Saturday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

Friday, July 06, 2012

Log Cabins LV


If you buy a log cabin then it's becoming increasingly likely that it comes not only from the Baltic but more specifically from Log Cabins LV. They only sell to trade so unless you want to build a shedlike village then you probably won't be visiting their Lithuanian showroom, but you're almost sure to recognise some of their designs (inlcuding the Clock House pictured above) and it's easy to locate a dealer in the UK using their Locate A Dealer page.

Based in Latvia, the company's Kevin Langham, who designed and produced the Clock House as well as the Twin Skin Log Cabins first, says they also now have a new metal corner system that is 100% waterproof as well as an insulated static caravan that will increase in value. "My mother bought one and lost so much money in seven years," he explains, "that I decided to design something that would be almost passive, incredibly insulated, and fully fitted out for a very low price."

As well as quite traditional designs - there are a phenomenal 1,500 - they offer some rather nice innovative models including their rather attractive Pod.


"I believe in only using government controlled lumber," says Kevin, who has been supplying the UK with log cabins for 12 years, using resilient Siberian Larch rather than the European kind. "Governments in the Baltics are really on the ball when it comes to lumber stocks and how it is managed."


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Thursday, July 05, 2012

Boris Johnson and Daily Mail don't get homeworking

According to the Daily Mail, the Mayor of London has described working from home (in the context of travel problems around Olympics time) as "a skivers’ charter" and "a wonderful glorified sick-note for the entire working population". Apparently he also suggested "We all know that [home working] is basically sitting wondering whether to go down to the fridge to hack off that bit of cheese before checking your emails again."

 Of course Boris has previous on this issue (see here) but the author of the piece Steven Doughty goes on to compound this bizarre statement by generally belittling homeworking, for example 'arguing' that "A high proportion of home workers are working mothers, whose employers take a fairly liberal view of timekeeping". 

Oh dear.

Highgate garden office: £225,000


Positioned just off Highgate High Street in a small mews in the heart of the village, a freehold, self-contained commercial unit with office use, which has recently been restored and upgraded. The property, approximately 224 sq. ft. of bright studio space, benefits from CAT 5 wiring and kitchen & bathroom facilities. Properties of this nature in the area are extremely rare. Office Space * Kitchen Area * Shower Room
Benham & Reeves 



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