Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Merry Christmas to all readers of Shedworking


“Yo ho, my boys,” said Fezziwig. “No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer. Let’s have the shutters up,” cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, “before a man can say Jack Robinson.”
Shutters open again on December 29. Annual Shedworking awards announced December 31. ------------ Apologies for the delay in the awards - festive IT issues struck the staff down so these will be postponed until the end of January

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Wikihouse studio


WikiHouse describes itself as an "open source construction system. A design commons for high-performance, low-energy homes that can be customised, printed and self-assembled. We are collaborating to put design tools and knowledge into the hands of everyone."

Rather excitingly the first WikiHouse kit is a garden office which is available to download and also to buy in the UK, designed by Architecture 00. It comes in at around 12sqm and can be delivered to your home as a CNC-printed kit with full instructions (Wikihouse suggests three or four people will take about three days to put it up). More details and instructions here. Well worth a long look. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Monday, December 22, 2014

Cabin in a rock



Inspired by a story by Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz, Antoine by Bureau A is a wooden cabin built inside a fake concrete rock, an alpine shelter, which they says is "a precarious 'Existenzminimum' somewhat subversive in its use where one can freely enter and hide. It contains the very basic architectural elements - fire place, bed, table, stool, window - but demands to the visitor some risk taking as the rock hangs literally on the rock fall field."
Via those fine folk at dezeen
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Friday, December 19, 2014

Shed Quiz of the Year

Take part in the Shed of the year - end of the year Quiz A very jolly quiz from over at that other shed blog, embedded here using a clever bit of Uncle Wilco online magickery.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Shed decor: Shedworkers' bookshelf


A book to look out for in February next year, Shed Decor by Sally Coulthard (author of the excellent Shed Chic) promises to be an "inspirational guide to decorating and furnishing outdoor rooms and garden sheds" which will help us design, decorate and equip your shedworking space. According to Sally: "These important outdoor rooms deserve as much thought as any living space within the house."

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Homestead Timber Buildings - Manufacturers of Quality Timber Buildings

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Hush: Interior shedworking


The 'interior shedworking' folder is getting fatter and fatter. The latest addition is Hush by Freyja Sewell. The shell is cut from a piece of 10mm industrial wool felt and internal padding is made from recycled wool fibres, the by-product of the carpet industry.

"Wool is naturally flame retardant, breathable, durable and elastic," shes says. "It is also multi-climatic, meaning it is warm when the environment is cold and cool when it’s warm. It is of course biodegradable and so won’t clog up landfill after disposal. It is produced sustainably from animals out in the open, with each sheep producing a new fleece each year."


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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

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Egg-shaped beach huts


Egg-shaped shedlike atmospheres are all the rage at the moment. The latest is a beach hut design called Albang designed by Yoon Space Design and set up on a beach in Yangyang-gun in South Korea. They're carved - yes, carved - out of polystyrene.
Photos (by indiphos) at Dezeen
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Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Monday, December 15, 2014

Will 2015 be the year you start your own shedworking business?


If you haven't done so already, the latest report suggests that many of you will be taking the leap next year and starting a business from your garden office.

New research carried out by Angels Den UK’s largest 'business angel' network [disclaimer: its founders are friends of the Shedworking staff] reveals that more than one in ten people have put ‘starting my own business’ on their New Year’s resolutions list for 2015.

Although getting fitter, drinking less and losing weight unsurprisingly top the poll of nearly 2,000 people, 18 per cent said they were looking for a new job or a career change, and 11 per cent that they were planning to start their own business.

Of these, three quarters said that their plan was still at the 'just an idea' stage, but the other quarter had already begun the process of setting it up, such as obtaining a website domain name.

When asked what types of businesses they were planning to set up in the New Year, the top industries were:

1. Food/Drink- 16 per cent
2. Fashion - 13 per cent
3. IT- 8 per cent
4. Media- 5 per cent
5. Construction- 5 per cent

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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Wrong kind of shed on the tracks

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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

Tuesday, December 09, 2014

How to keep your garden office tidy


 A useful little blog post by Jenna Spesard at Tumbleweed looks at 10 ways to keep your tiny house kitchen tidy. While not all the tips are appropriate for shedworkers, it's definitely worth a look as there are some useful ideas. For example, number 4 is all about considering high storage. "Having high shelves or hangings baskets can clear your counters and harness the underutilized space above your eye-line."
Image courtesy Notonthehighstreet.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Monday, December 08, 2014

Made in a shed: Mark Brend's new album






We've featured Devon-based musician, writer and shedworker Mark Brend and his work before on Shedworking and he has just released another album, Morrow (with Michael Paine), which was put together in his shed

Mark says the album references the mid-20th century British writer Phyllis Paul and shares with her novels an interest in the ambiguous territory between natural and supernatural. "Deploying piano, electric and acoustic guitar, flute, percussion, glockenspiel and organ with musique concrète textures and found sounds, we create a cryptic English pastoral noir, drawing variously on folk, evangelical hymns, jazz, Debussy and Maurice Deebank," he says.


Excerpts here and more details here. --------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Tuesday, December 02, 2014

The rise of the treehouse office


A nice piece by Tim Walker in The Independent  (disclaimer: they pay most of my mortgage) describes treehouses as the latest US property boom. "More and more treehouses are being built in the United States," says Tim, "not only for children but also as home offices, guest houses and tree-house resorts. Here's a snippet:
Over in Oregon, Michael Garnier, 66, the owner of the Out'n'About Treehouse Treesort, estimates that demand for parts from his mail-order treehouse supply business has doubled since 2013. "I've been selling parts for years but in the past year it's really exploded," he says.
Well worth a read (it's quite short). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Monday, December 01, 2014

Beach hut advent calendar enters seventh year


We've been covering the annual beach hut advent calendar in Brighton since it started seven years ago (see here for more details of past calendars), so we're delighted that Beyond Church has again been working hard to make it happen again in 2014. As in previous years, a different beach hut on the Hove esplanade will open its doors every night as Christmas approaches, each with an artistic festive surprise within. There's mince pies, warm drinks and almost certainly special guests every day between 5.30pm and 6.30pm, starting tonight with Hut 311. Good luck to all, and to all a good luck. --------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Garden studio with its own golf course





After queries about heating and insulation, how to theme your garden office space is probably the most common issue raised by readers. Green Studios recently replaced an old swimming pool outhouse, with the new studio above which features a home cinema, pool changing facility, and a golf simulator.

"A golf simulator needs a flat wall for the video screen which doubles as the cinema screen, and a higher than normal ceiling height," explains Steve Warr from Green Studios. "To achieve this, we dug below ground level and then built the garden studio to the height permitted within local planning regulations. By digging down and building steps from the garden down into the studio, we created a room with a generous ceiling height of over three metres which makes it perfectly roomy for even the most enthusiastic of back swings." --------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Friday, November 28, 2014

Build your own shepherd's hut garden office using a kit


If you've ever fancied building your own shepherd's hut to work in, Downland Shepherd Huts has just the thing for you, self-build kits.

The Woolley Shepherd Hut series comes in three versions from £4,825 for the basic package (including cast iron wheels, steel chassis, corrugated tin rooft sheets, SIP panels and roof timbers), up to £10,395 (with vintage apple crates, futon mattress, woodburning stove with hearth, single hardwood stable door, and exterior steps to hut).

Monday, November 24, 2014

Small businesses increasingly run from home and garden offices


Just over eight out of 10 of the UK’s small businesses - those with under 10 employees - now use their home as a workplace, according to research from Lloyds Bank Insurance.

Its Big Issues for Small Businesses report shows that just over half of all microbusinesses are run from home.

More than three quarters of these homeworkers have made significant changes to their property to make it 'work ready' -  the average cost of adapting homes for working life is £1,392, with the most popular change being a room-to-office conversion (carried out by 42 per cent).


While the living room is the most popular spot within the home to work (41 per cent said they worked here), closely followed by the dining room and kitchen, a whopping 13 per cent also went to work in their garden office or garage.

Being able to work from home is the main driver for almost half of those who have taken this work path, while three quarters say they simply enjoy working from home and feel it provides greater flexibility. Two thirds also argue that it makes better financial sense, while 57 per cent say it actually improves productivity.

Indeed, the main drawback according to more than a third of those questioned is working more than they would like and a similar figure admit they miss the sociable atmosphere of a traditional office. Around 36 per cent also say that their homes are messier since they started working from home.

Other worries include somebody in the family deleting/losing a document (17 per cent), while 10 per cent admit damaging a work device by spilling a drink on it.

Image courtesy Peterson Studios --------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Friday, November 21, 2014

Garden office under construction

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

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

David Morris MP becomes the Government’s amabassador for the self-employed


It's National Freelancers Day today which is an appropriate moment to announce the appointment of David Morris MP as the UK’s first "self-employed ambassador" whose job it will be to represent the interests of freelancers throughout the UK.

"As a self-employed businessman myself for nearly 30 years before I came into Parliament I know only too well how Government’s policy effects those who are self-employed," he said. "I believe our self-employed and small businessmen are the lifeblood for the economic recovery and believe that stripping back the burden of red tape and taxation will allow freelancers to flourish."

We've contacted David to ask for his views on shedworking and will report back when he gets back to us. ----------------------------------------------------
Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Shedworking designs at 2015 Chelsea Flower Show


The RHS has given an early sheds-up on the designs for the 2015 Chelsea Flower Show. Probably the most promising looking is from friend of Shedworking Jo Thompson who is putting together the M&G Garden called The Retreat, pictured above. It will feature a "sturdy double-storey oak-framed building" surrounded by Betula nigra, Acer japonica ‘Vitifolium’ and Robinia and a natural dipping pool.


Harry and David Rich's Cloudy Bay Garden also looks promising as it includes a moveable shack in the middle of the garden.

More updates on these and other designs as they emerge. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Monday, November 17, 2014

How much value does a garden office add to your property?


This is probably in the top five of questions asked of the Shedworking staff. There are no hard and fast figures on this, but a new survey of independent estate agents about which home improvements provide most added value gives a few indications.

So while the figures from Move with Us estimate a parking space or an extra bedroom adds 10 per cent, they reckon a 'man cave' adds one per cent, as does a tree house, a Cobb outhouse and indeed a garden folly. When it comes to garden offices, they put the added value at more like five per cent, on a par with a cinema room or a new kitchen

Simon King, Director at Move with Us said: “More unusual home improvements are increasing in popularity. Home owners are ingeniously creating new spaces within the boundaries of their existing homes where they can live out their dreams. These include garden offices so they can work from home, workshops where they can carry out their passions, their own personal pubs and all sorts of other extraordinary structures. It’s truly an inspiring trend. It’s great to see home owners using skill, imagination and working within planning permission guidelines to create exciting new spaces which have the added bonus of boosting the value of their property.” 
Image: Garden Retreat
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Dylan Thomas's writing hut vs wind turbines


As many of you know, there are plans afoot to build a wind turbine smack in the middle of the view Dylan Thomas would have had from his writing shed. The latest update, as reported on Wales Online
is that a judicial review of the planners' decision to green light the scheme - which would see a 45m turbine across the estuary from the Boathouse -  has now been granted.

According to Wales Online, "Opponents say the turbine will blight a view that has attracted international tourists and Dylan fans for decades." A final decision will now be made in early 2015.

Photo: Stuart Logan (CC) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Monday, November 10, 2014

Shedworking meets pubworking


It's one of our favourite hobbyhorses here at Shedworking, that underused pub space should be marketed during the day to homeworkers. An excellent example of how this could work is featured in the Morning Advertiser which tells the story of an Enterprise Inns pub in Yorkshire that has installed three heated beach huts in a £250,000 investment plan. Well worth a browse. --------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Friday, November 07, 2014

Shoffice


I can remember the first time I came across the term 'shoffice' about seven years ago thinking it was a marvellous description of a shedworking structure. Louise Jones from Arctic Cabins is also a fan and sent in a recent example of a shoffice built and fitted for a customer in the back garden of a Victorian terraced house in London.

"As we manufacture all our cabins from scratch at our Derbyshire factory we are able to build all our buildings to exactly meet customer requirements," she says. "This year several customers have wanted an office and a shed so we have combined the two into The ShOffice. The ShOffice isn’t a shed or an office but a combination of both, a partitioned garden building. The back section is a shed, not insulated but with its own door and windows. The front is an insulated office with doubleglazed windows and doors and it is all kitted out with electrics and heating"

Thursday, November 06, 2014

Orange shedworking

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Homestead Timber Buildings - Manufacturers of Quality Timber Buildings

Wednesday, November 05, 2014

Photography studio




Quite a large shedworking space, designed by FT architects in Japan (who call it 'Light Shed') with a timber frame covered in sheets of translucent corrugated plastic. The 33sqm garden office, which also has a lavatory, is in the back garden of a photographer's house in Kanagawa, Japan.

Photos by Shigeo Ogawa
Via Dezeen

Monday, November 03, 2014

Building a bunkie


We're always keen to hear from readers who blog about their shedlike builds, so naturally it was a pleasure to hear from Devon-based Mark Lawrence of Salamander Stoves who is building his own 'bunkie' and chronicling it at Amazing Small Spaces. It's well worth a read, especially for an upcoming section on how to install stove.

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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Chancellor George Osborne backs shedworking


It's good to see highranking politicians interested in the world of garden offices so we were delighted that Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and Minister for Women and Equalities Nicky Morgan visited Rotunda Living run by friend of shedworking, Gemma Roe.

Their visit coincided with her announcement that the company will expand its workforce by a quarter and expects to double its revenues from last year (and follows them doubling their workforce over the last 18 months).

Rotunda Living received a start-up loan in 2013 to manufacture and construct timber round houses for garden offices, extensions, and holiday lodges. The company was launched in July 2012, two weeks after Gemma had her first child. In 2013 the company received £7,700 from Start-Up Now.

Rotunda Living was recently awarded a contract to build the country’s first completely round eco-classroom for a primary school in the East Midlands. They also recently sold their first complete home. The company is now drawing up plans to expand overseas.

George Osborne said: "I was very pleased to visit Rotunda, a brilliant British start-up to see their innovative products and hear about their plans to expand into new markets."

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Nature-starved offices affecting employees' health


Apologies for a second post on a new report in as many days, but this one is also interesting for shedworkers as The Human Spaces Report shows employees who work in environments with natural elements report a 13% higher level of wellbeing and are 8% more productive.

The survey of 3,600 employees in eight European countries (from flooring specialists Interface) indicates that 42% of office employees have no natural light in their working environment, over half don’t have access to any greenery in their working environment and 7% have no window in their workspace. 

The top five natural elements officeworkers put on their wish list for their ideal office space were:
1.      Natural light
2.      Quiet working space
3.      A view of the sea
4.      Live indoor plants
5.      Bright colours

In related news, The Stable Company has joined the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom which promotes learning opportunities outside the classroom.

"We feel strongly about the impact surroundings can have on a child’s ability to learn," they say. "There are a million uses for timber structures that can perfectly unite the indoor and outdoor learning aims and bring some much needed diversity to the environments we teach our children." ----------------------------------------------------
Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Hobby entrepreneurs contribute £8bn to the British economy


A growing number of UK adults are capitalising on technology and turning their passion for hobbies into part-time businesses, with the average hobby entrepreneur making £1,815 a year from their venture, says a new report. In total, 9% of UK adults say they already make money from a hobby, suggesting an economic contribution of around £8 billion to the UK economy.

According to Visa Europe’s Everyone in Business report, which looks at the growth of micro-entrepreneurship, 56% of UK adults have a hobby or business idea that they believe could or do earn them extra income. Around half this group would like to pursue their hobby as a money-making venture in the future [Shedblog has an excellent post about people making amazing things in their sheds including Nicola from In The Shed, pictured above].

For the 9% who are already making money from their hobby, two key reasons stand out for their success: creative passion and freedom; and the role of technology which has made it easier to start a micro-business. A quarter state that they want to do something they are passionate about and that they like being their own boss.

For 31% the development of technology, particularly the internet, e-commerce and online payments, is allowing potential entrepreneurs to set-up and run their business with more ease. In fact, more than half of people say that the use of Twitter or Facebook is as key to their sales as word of mouth.

Kevin Jenkins, Managing Director at Visa UK & Ireland said: “Hobbies have always provided the first step to starting a micro-business. Now, the breadth of opportunity is accelerating. Hobby entrepreneurs are no longer limited to their neighbourhood audience or word-of-mouth marketing. Selling and marketing via the internet opens up the market to everyone. This is a chance for anyone and everyone to be in business with an idea or craft they are passionate about.”

Everyone in Business reveals that the economic value of hobbies varies across the UK and between different activities. Hobby entrepreneurs in the design (£3,700 per year), photography (£2,400) and building and decorating (£2,300) fields are among those earning the most income from their micro-businesses. Scottish hobby-entrepreneurs are particularly adept at making money from their micro-business, claiming to earn over £3,800 a year on average. 

However would-be hobby entrepreneurs do identify a number of barriers to starting or building their business. Over 1 in 10 (12%) fear that they won’t understand the technology to make their business profitable, while 11% are unsure of how to handle setting up payments for their business.

Kevin Jenkins added: “Accepting payments can be seen as a pain point for micro-businesses but it’s important to look at it in context. Accepting electronic payments opens up whole new markets for sellers, especially online. It’s a way to quickly scale and grow a business.

“New technologies in the payments space are also challenging the perception that payments are expensive and complex and acting as a catalyst for change. Innovations like mobile point of sale (mPOS) give micro-merchants an easy in-person way to accept payments wherever they are. And for those selling predominantly online, payment security is constantly updating and evolving, offering customers a safe, easy route to buy from hobby entrepreneurs.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Monday, October 20, 2014

Dylan Thomas shed celebrations


As we've mentioned before on Shedworking, a pop-up version of Dylan Thomas’ writing shed is on the road and this week it's in London for a week of celebrations of the writer's time in the capital. Events include A Shed of One's Own, a photographic celebration of shed at The Buildings Centre in Store Street, WC1E. The nicely recreated shed will also be there if you fancy a look around (there's a nice piece about its time in Leicester here).

Shedworking factfans will also be interested to discover that while Thomas lived in a flat in Delancey Street in Camden, he wrote in a caravan which was parked at the end of the garden, a kind of trial garden office for his writing shed near the Boathouse in Laugharne (although he found the caravan a bit cold and damp apparently). It's not clear whether it's still in situ but it certainly was as recently as 1983 when a Blue Plaque was set up at the address.


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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Backyard Buildings




I've been chatting recently to Jeanie and David Stiles, known to many of you for their excellent shedlike designs and most recently their latest book Backyard Building which I can't recommend too strongly. Here are some examples from it, above, described by the Stileses themselves.

1.  Irish Garden Shed
We saw this shed while bicycling through the British Isles.  Like most things in Europe, it was built to last for centuries; it was probably used to store farming tools, but it makes a great little space for a garden shed or small office. The original was thatched, but on Long Island, New York we substituted hand-split cedar shakes; the logs are locust, from trees brought down by a hurricane.  We decided to put in a brick floor - the textures of wood & brick complement each other beautifully.  For more information and plans, go to www.stilesdesigns.com

2.  The Perfect Shed has classic, functional proportions (10' x 12') versatile enough to be a guest cottage, playhouse, studio or home office - the relatively square floorspace enables maximum use of the space.  A full set of plans (50 pages) is available at www.stilesdesigns.com

3.  The A-Frame (designed by Deek Diedricksen) is compact, affordable, and quick & easy to build.  With recycled materials, you could build this tiny house for less than $1,000.  The basic design can be customised, enlarged & altered in countless ways - for example, to include more space, a larger loft, add an extension or even a bathroom.  Details, ideas & inspiration and comprehensive plans at www.stilesdesigns.com

Photos: Skip Hine and Deek Diedricksen. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning