Friday, August 31, 2012

Art studio shed in St Petersburg


A lovely watercolour painting studio designed and built by Historic Shed for a client in St Petersburg, Florida, measuring 10′x10′. Here's what they have to say about the build:
"The studio shed incorporates a door that the owner had saved from the main house many years before. Termites has done extensive damage to the bottom of the door, which we trimmed down and patched."
Inside there is a small AC unit for those hot summers and we particularly like the chandelier up in the roof trusses. -----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Splendid treehouse for sale


This lovely treehouse comes with a six bedroom detached house in Corbridge, currently on the market for a little under £4 million. According to Rightmove, "the twin tree house, built by the same company as The Alnwick Garden treehouse, is a highly impressive piece of architecture with timber terrace leading up to the main house."

If you fancy having a go at building one yourself, or don't have four million quid down the back of your sofa, My Garden School runs courses in treehouse design and building as the video below explains.

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Homestead Timber Buildings - Manufacturers of Quality Timber Buildings

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Irish Men's Shed Association seeks 'Shed Advocates'


The Irish Men’s Shed Association (IMSA) is looking to put together a nationwide panel of volunteer 'Shed Advocates'. The movement - which originated in Australia - has been very successful in Ireland but they have limited resources to deal with the many requests they receive for support and information, hence the idea of a special panel of helpers. If you're interested in taking part, nip along to their website here, download an application form and return it to them by September 10.
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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Bletchley Park Hut 11a fundraising launch


Bletchley Park is in a race against time to find funding to restore Hut 11A alongside the other, Lottery funded, building works, ready for Bletchley Park’s re-launch in 2014.

Their plan is to restore the hut - a single storey rectangular brick building with corrugated roof - as a location for a redeveloped interpretation of the reconstructed Bombe machine and its relationship to Enigma in the decryption process - the cost of restoring Hut 11a is £250,000.

Hut 11A was part of the Hut 11 complex which housed the Bombe Section which was responsible for the management, development and maintenance of the Bombe decoding machine developed to break Enigma Codes. It was built between October 1941 and Feburary 1942 and by late 1942 Hut 11A was adapted as a control and communications centre. In 1946 Hut 11A together with Hut 11 were used as carpenters' workshops and stores by the Ministry of Works. After 1992, when the hut was obtained by the Bletchley Park Trust, it was in use as the club room of the Milton Keynes Model Railway Club. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3rdSpace modular garden rooms
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Win a celebrity shed


The celebrity sheds were a very popular part of this year's National Shed Week and now you can own part of this historic event by bidding for one of them on ebay as part of a charity auction. As well as my own garden office shed (personally painted by me and worked in by me a bit) the sale of which will be raising funds for Age UK, you can also throw your hat into the ring for Sarah Beeny's pub shed, Christian O’Connell's 1980s shed, Vic Reeves's museum shed and Joanne Harris's sky-themed shed. More details at the ebay auction site here.

"The bespoke dens took each celebrity over a month to create, working with a team of artists, carpenters and stylists who helped bring the individual shed creations to life," said Uncle Wilco, organiser of Shed of the Year. "Locations throughout the UK were then carefully picked as places of natural beauty, with each shed then transported across Briton to stunning view points." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3rdSpace modular garden rooms
Tuesday posts are sponsored by 3rdSpace modular garden rooms.
Customise | Configure | Extend | Relocate

Monday, August 27, 2012

Natural reed garden studio




This rather beautiful shedworking atmosphere in Ely - 2.5m x 3.8m with 8cm thick reed panel walls and roof, double glazed door and window, raised timber floor - is being advertised on Gumtree. Apparently it only takes a day to assemble.


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Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Shedworking staff annual holidays


All the senior staff members at Shedworking have upped and gone leaving us interns here to manage the ship - we'll be hunting down more intriguing shedlike atmospheres while the blighters are sunning themselves and bring you the results very soon.

Tuesday, August 07, 2012

Rooftop water towerworking

An incredible transformation from old sprinkler tank tower to urban shedlike retreat by Messana O’Rorke in New York. Lots more photos and information at Remodelista who say: "This romantic water tower to man cave transformation certainly has us convinced about the merits of looking at life a little differently." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3rdSpace modular garden rooms
Tuesday posts are sponsored by 3rdSpace modular garden rooms.
Customise | Configure | Extend | Relocate

Monday, August 06, 2012

Does the Olympics herald the death of the office?


That's the suggestion by Jacobina Plummer, whose marvellous job title at Unilever is 'agile working programme lead', writing at Personnel Today. Here's a snippet:
"I believe that the Olympics could be the catalyst that many companies need to reinvent the office, adopting a new flexible approach to working that benefits both employees and business.... Along with greater productivity, reduced impact on the environment, a measured increase in engagement and productivity scores, as well as our ability to attract and retain talent, it's clear to see that agile working meets business needs."
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Cobwood garden rooms



 
Suffolk-based earthmoves design is run by landscape designers Neil and Emi-Lou Lankford who also specialise in building 'cobwood' roundhouses and garden rooms, circular buildings with green roofs that are ideal for shedworking.

You can read about the building of one at Jimmy’s Farm (home of The Essex Pig Company) on Neil's blog, a 5m diameter model made with oak and sweet chestnut coppiced by Neil at the woods on the farm. Here's an explanatory snippet: 
"The roof frame supports itself without the need for a central post to hold it up as each inward facing beam rests on the previous one with the last one tucked under the first one but on top of the previous one – keeping the whole structure up in the air. A mixture of wild meadow perennials and cornfield annuals will be planted on the roof. The gaps between the henge frame are filled in with ‘Cobwood’ – short lengths of logs bedded together with ‘Cob’ – soil mixed with water, hay and a bit of lime. Also there will be a mixture of leaded glass windows and large Perspex viewing panes."
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Saturday, August 04, 2012

JK Rowling's treehouses



We reported last year on the possibility of JK Rowling becoming a shedworker but it looks now as if she's going another way.

The Harry Potter author has recently received planning permission to build two – rather impressive – treehouses on stilts in the garden of her home in Edinburgh for her two young children. Each turreted treehouse will be two-storeys and include bay windows, fireman’s pole, spiral staircase and will be linked by a rope bridge. They will be built by treehouse specialist Blue Forest and you can see more plans of it than you could possibly ever want here and here. ---------------------------------------------------
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Friday, August 03, 2012

New boost to pubworking


As regular readers will know, Shedworking is a big supporter of Pubworking, so we were pleased to see that StartUp Britain is hoping to inspire pub regulars to become beermat entrepreneurs having teamed up with Pub is the Hub to encourage pub regulars to think about setting up a business while they’re having a pint.

The national campaign is asking pubgoers to write their business ideas on the back of a beer mat to be in with a chance to win a Dell laptop and some exclusive hints and tips from a top entrepreneur on how to make a go of their idea. Business expert and StartUp Britain co-founder Emma Jones said:
“Our research suggests that more than 50 per cent of people want to start a business, but only five per cent do anything about it. It’s never been easier to set up a business. All you need is the spark of idea, a laptop, access to broadband and a phone. The pub is the perfect place to network, knock around ideas and get good honest advice. All people need to hear is that they ‘can’ set up a business. If we can get that message across, we think it will only be a matter of time before they do. Business is a sociable thing. We want to see how many of those beer mat ideas we can turn into real businesses.” 

Pub is The Hub Chief Executive John Longden added: “Business has always been done in the pub – and it always will be. Pubs are better placed than anywhere in the land to offer not only a great environment for their customers to come up with enterprising ideas – but as entrepreneurs themselves – good licensees will be able to inspire them as well. We’re always talking to licensees about how to develop their pub business to become the real hub of their community. Offering business advice and opportunity is a great way to take this forward to benefit everyone.”

The nationwide competition, which recently launched its StartUp High Street initiative, is also looking for Britain’s Most Entrepreneurial Pub. The pub with the highest number of beermat business entries will pick up the title to win a laptop and some mentoring for itself. The special beer mats will be available in just under 1,000 pubs across the UK, in rural pubs affiliated to Pub is The Hub, as well as in hostelries run by a range of pub companies including Robinson’s, Marston’s, SA Brains, St Austell, Enterprise Inns, Punch and Adnams. -----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Thursday, August 02, 2012

Shedworking is the key to Bradley Wiggins' success

Honestly, it is. As the BBC's Matt Slater puts it, "This time last year, the soon-to-be-knighted (if there is any consistency to these things) Bradley Wiggins was spending a lot of time in his garden shed."

Olympic gold winner Wiggins in fact does a lot of his training in his garden shed at his home in Eccleston, Lancashire. Here's how Sports Illustrated describes what he does there:
"When he needs to simulate a hot climate - often a problem in northwest England - Wiggins will repair to his TARDIS-sized shed (also used to store overflow guitars from his ever-expanding collection), put his bike on rollers, crank the heat and ... suffer. For hours."
Or as he told The Guardian:
"It's good to have the chance to train in real heat on the climbs as opposed to being sat in my garden shed with the heaters on full trying to replicate it."
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Homestead Timber Buildings - Manufacturers of Quality Timber Buildings

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Olympic equestrian pods

Hudson Garden Rooms won the tender last year to design and build shedworkingesque pods for the London 2012 Olympic equestrian events (replicas of which are now available to the public). They're really rather nice - FSC Red Cedar, 2.5m x 2.4m, sliding doors, integrated desk/storage - and the equestrian judges are enjoying using them in Greenwich Park. Each pod comes with an Olympic approved plaque as official replicas. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here.

The joy of the home office

We were very happy to talk to the amiable Jon Stock about his article in the Daily Telegraph, The joy of the home office. There's lots in the piece about shepherds' huts in particular. Here's a snippet, really rather a brilliant quote:
"The beauty of garden offices is that they’re not restricted by any rules of size, shape or construction material. It’s now easy to find ones which are octagonal or spherical, built on wheels, constructed partially underground or floating on water.”
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Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here.