Garden office insurance: John Lewis

Eyebrows were mildly raised when John Lewis made its first foray into the shedworking market but did you also know that they offer garden office insurance? According to John Brady, head of commercial at John Lewis Insurance, the structure of your shedlike atmosphere would be covered under their Unlimited Buildings cover and contents under their Unlimited Contents cover. He adds:

"Accidental damage is the most common cause for customers to make a claim on their policy. With a summer house or garden pod, accidental damage could include breakages to the windows or fittings, subsidence destabilising the structure, or damage caused by falling trees or branches. Your home insurance policy should protect you against these mishaps by covering the costs for replacement or repair."

He adds, wisely, that shedworkers should avoid leaving computer equipment or other electrical items in their garden offices when they are unattended/unlocked and goes on to say:

"The contents of your garden office would be covered under specialist home insurance, which means you could recover the cost of any lost valuables, personal possessions, business equipment and even business stock. Remember though, that a claim won’t be valid if the theft takes place when the summer house is left unlocked or insecure."

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

Design ideas for garden rooms

An excellent pictorial piece at Ideal Home about garden offices, buildings and sheds, with examples from eDEN Garden Rooms (above) and Cuckooland.com (pictured top). Here's a snippet about

Farmer’s Cottage seven-seater rotating garden pod from John Lewis & Partners:

"Garden pods are ideal for dining, studying or entertaining," says Vicky Angell, buyer for outdoor living at John Lewis & Partners. Consider the pod size carefully: think about how many you’d like to seat, and how it will look in the garden – too big and it may be overpowering. "A rotating design that can be angled away from wind and towards the sun can help make best use of the space at all times of the year," adds Vicky. A roof cover, blinds or solar-control glazing will help to deflect heat and ensure a comfortable temperature, even on the hottest day.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master: garden offices and studios to fit any size garden. Top quality contemporary or traditional buildings.

Whopping rise in sales of garden buildings

Sales of sheds over £1,000 are rocketing, according to the Daily Telegraph which says that B&Q's sales of its Tenbieight Shack Up (£1,149, pictured above) and Cannock summer cabin (£1,299) are up hundreds of percent. It follows John Lewis' entry into the market earlier this year. Two key quotes from those who spoke to the Telegraph's Harry Wallop:

Gurinder Jellehwallia, a buyer from B&Q said: “More and more of us want to reclaim some personal space in our homes so whether we’re retreating to our greenhouses, home working from our sheds or playing in our summer houses this trend looks set to continue.” Suzanne Imre, editor of Living Etc magazine reinforces this trend: “I think there will be need for retreats. If more and more people are working from home you will need to have areas you can section off and go to where it’s quiet."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Garden Room Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here.

New competition to find the UK's best 'shoffice'

As we recently predicted, we're seeing an uptick in the number of shed-based competitions and the latest angle is the search for the best 'shoffice'.

Aviva has launched a national competition to find the UK’s best “shoffices”, what they describe as "sheds or outbuildings converted or built for use as workspaces". Owners are invited to upload pictures of their shoffice to the Aviva Facebook page and will be in with a chance of winning one of three prizes of retail vouchers, each worth £250. Each winner will be able to choose from vouchers for Amazon, John Lewis Partners, Ikea, B&Q or Currys PC World. 

Entries will be judged by property expert, podcast host and author, Louisa Fletcher who will be looking for original, innovative designs, with bonus points awarded for brilliant use of budget. 

To be eligible for the competition, each shoffice must be a DIY project, such as a converted shed or garage, or a self-built development created by the owner. Professionally constructed or manufactured buildings will not be considered. There are no date restrictions regarding when the shoffice was developed, but entries must be received by 5pm on 1 June, 2021.

Last month, data from the insurer’s How We Live report discovered the number of UK homeworkers using converted sheds and outbuildings is expected to grow from 10% to 13%. Nicki Charles, Retail MD, General Insurance, Aviva said: “The number of people using outdoor spaces is steadily creeping upwards. For many, working from home started out as a ‘needs must’ situation, but hybrid working looks set to stay and there’s every chance we’ll see even more outdoor offices in the future. We want to see the creative, inventive solutions that people have come up with to embrace this new way of working."

Pictured above is probably the most famous shoffice, the work of Platform 5 as featured previously on Shedworking. 

----------------------------------

Wednesday’s posts are sponsored by Norwegian Log Buildings  - Log cabins and garden buildings for a better quality of life. Click here for more details.

Roomworks wins House Beautiful Award

Large congratulations to Roomworks who, in addition to winning Shedworking's new HQ competition earlier in the year, received the Garden Room of the year Gold Award at the House Beautiful Awards 2009 (they pipped B&Q to the post who came in with silver). Other winnders included Laura Ashley, John Lewis and Dyson.

Arctic Cabins: Christmas advert

The annual John Lewis/M&S/ Sainsbury's Christmas ads have become something of a festive tradition so we're delighted to see that Arctic Cabins is striking a blow for the garden room market by releasing their own. 


Here's what they say:

"Sorry to mention Christmas when it is only October, but we have to let you know that we are fast running out of installation dates for this year. With several teams out fitting daily we now have just 30 places available for installation before Christmas. If you would like to secure one of those places please give us a call or drop us an email urgently. You and your family could wake up to this amazing piece of Christmas on December 25th."

---------------------------------------------------------

Saturday posts are sponsored by Eurodita, the leader in serving smart dealers

Tesco sheds

Peas, bananas, and, well, yes, I'll have a shed too please. First John Lewis, now Tesco. The supermarket giant has branched out into the garden sheds market as the image above shows. There's a wide selection of wooden and metal sheds as well as cabins and summerhouses, featuring wellknown names such as Finnforest and Lifespace, starting from around £400 and going up to just below £10,000. Many come with installation as part of the package. Do let us know if you've bought yours from them.

Cartoon by that clever Colin Shelbourn


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Dunster House, the leading UK company for Log Cabins and Garden Offices sponsors Fridays posts

Gardeners' World Live: The Partners Garden

There are plenty of garden offices and shedlike environments on the drawing board for Gardeners' World Live in Birmingham in June and we'll be profiling them all next week here on Shedworking. First up is The Partners Garden, a collaboration between John Lewis Home Solutions and the APL (Association of Professional Landscapers). They describe it as "an inspirational and useable space that visitors will undoubtedly relate to. The beautifully designed space will show visitors what can be achieved in a small garden with a combination of formal and informal soft landscaping, a garden office and wonderful structural hedging." We look forward to the first images of its construction.

---------------------------------------

Sunday posts are sponsored by eDEN Garden Rooms. Stunning, bespoke high quality garden rooms, to suit your unique space and style

Garden offices: never knowingly undersold

You've bought your curtains, you've placed an order on a friend's wedding list but there's something you've forgotten to get while you're shopping in John Lewis. What is it... what is it... that's it, a garden office.

Yes, you can now nip past the carpets and electronics and buy a garden office (a Crane model) on your next department store trip to JL. Lots of information on their site including a video featuring managing director James Crane on the delights of garden buildings.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday posts are sponsored by Euroffice, the UK’s most extensive office supplies website.

The Quiet Treehouse

Treehouse specialist Blue Forest hasbeen working with Quiet Mark (the trading arm of the Noise Abatement Society) and John Lewis to develop a tranquil tree-home with next generation sound engineering. The Quiet Treehouse will be unveiled at the Ideal Home Show from 14-30 March 2014 at London’s Earls Court and will be donated for permanent use by Chestnut Treehouse children’s hospice in Sussex and will provide the children and their families with a safe and stimulating environment in which to play, relax and share time together.

Inspired by the shape of a small coppice of trees, three primary trunks support the cocoon-like shedworkingesque structure which is accessed via stairs to the main floor. Its design can actually be installed independently of a host tree.

Andy Payne, Managing Director at Blue Forest, said: “So many temporary structures for shows are designed to only be up for a short while and are then dismantled and the material thrown out which is a tremendous waste. A key challenge of this treehouse project was to design something that could be installed at the Ideal Home Show in only seven days but that would be durable and long-lasting, providing real value for its final home at Chestnut Tree House Hospice.”

Visitors to The Quiet Treehouse will learn about the power of sounds in our homes and lives. The experience will include personal sound-portraits, a Wild Sanctuary animal sound archive and a chance to win an array of Quiet Mark awarded luxury technology products. The treehouse will also be full of the latest quiet gadgets  -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Quiet Mark Treehouse

Treehouse specialists Blue Forest have been in touch with some details of their fabulous design for The RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show (July 8-13). It's been put together in conjunction with John Lewis.

“This year's show will focus on the themes of ‘Grow, inspire and escape’ and the treehouse will reinforce these ideas," said Simon Paye, director at Blue Forest. "The extraordinary stand-alone treehouse concept was inspired by the shape of a small copse of oak trees. Its bold contemporary design can be installed independently of a host tree yet still provides the user with the feeling that they are high in the tree tops looking down on the world below.”

Suspended above the ground, 26 huge laminated timber ribs surround the treehouse like the canopy of an ancient tree. Each of the 6m high timber ribs is finished with a sustainable timber product called Kebony, a sustainable alternative to tropical hardwood. At ground level, three primary trunks formed from 48 interlocking timber fins support the cocoon-like creation. Each of the fins has been stained dark brown to match the external cladding of the building, reflecting the natural bark of trees.

After the show it will be donated to The Chestnut Tree House Children’s Hospice in West Sussex. 

The treehouse is 9m tall, 6m wide and 10m long, with a floor space of 46m2. The main platform stands 4m above the ground. The entire structure weighs 25 tonnes, and it will need to be assembled by a 45 tonne crane. Quiet Mark is the not-for-profit trading arm of the Noise Abatement Society charity which is campaigning for quieter technology in the office and at home. --------------------------------------------------------

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

Win £100 John Lewis Voucher with Malvern Garden Buildings

Click the box above to take part.

--------------------------------------

Monday posts are sponsored by Tiny House Cabins. Beautiful cabins for all year round... oozing character!