Studio by Sally Coulthard: Book review + giveaway

It's hard now to imagine how dreary shedworkers' bookshelves looked before Sally Coulthard and Jane Field-Lewis - together their books have revolutionised not only how we see our garden offices and other shedlike atmospheres, but how we decorate them and personalise them (modesty prevents mentioning any other names in this regard...).

Sally's latest book Studio (subtitle: 'creative spaces for creative people', published by Jacqui Small) is another success and a definite must-buy for any shedworker's bookshelf. Indeed it should be on any homeworker's 'to buy' list because while it does feature shed studios, shepherds' huts, and converted garages, there is a huge variety of creative work and study spaces on show here, and across numerous countries too.

As with Sally's previous books (out of her long backlist I'm thinking especially of Shed Chic and Shed Decor), it's a handsome hardback volume with plenty of high quality illustrations (and on quality paper too which will please book buffs). But it's not just a coffee-table book - the text, especially the case studies and the interviews with artists, is very readable and useful in terms of sourcing materials, planning layouts, lighting, and so on. And to be honest, it's also quite intriguing to politely poke around other people's studios. Well worth a read.

We've also got a couple of copies to give away to two lucky readers of Shedworking. Simply email (or @shedworking on Twitter) the answer to this question by the end of March 2017 (usual competition rules apply):

Q. Name three types of creative space featured in Studio.

Below is a selection of studio images from the book. From the top (photographer in brackets): Emily Sutton & Mark Hearld (Alun Callender); Max McMurdo (Simon Brown); Sarah Campbell (Alun Callender); Martin O'Neill (Alun Callender).

 

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How to Build a Shed by Sally Coulthard (book review)

Writer and friend of Shedworking Sally Coulthard probably has the finest shed book CV in the world. Her backlist includes Shed Chic, Shed Decor, and Studio (not to mention other titles on everything from snow to hedgehogs). They're all excellent reads and her latest - How to Build a Shed - is no exception.

Written in collaboration with the artist Lee John Phillips, who is still drawing all 100,000 items in his grandpa's shed, and published by Laurence King [disclaimer: LK have also just brought out my The Writers Game], it is a heavily illustrated and practical guide for beginners, though more experienced woodworkers will also fine plenty to appreciate inside too. It covers everything, from essential tools and using a spirit level, through the entire build programme and right up to considerations such as installing a wood-burning stove. Clear, accessible and never patronising, it is not only this year's best handbook for people considering building their own garden office, it also has rather natty endpapers.

Sally was in the Telegraph at the weekend talking about the book and her shed (pictured bottom) which is a good read.

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The Barn by Sally Coulthard

Before 21st century garden offices and their electrics, insulation, and green roofs, there was another much more basic form of shedworking. Friend of Shedworking Sally Coulthard - author of numerous books on sheds, nature, and history - combines all three of those areas of expertise in her latest book, The Barn: The Lives, Landscape and Lost Ways of an Old Yorkshire Farm. The book pivots around an old barn on her property in the Howardian Hills of Yorkshire as she narrates its history from threshing barn to a home for horses and cows, and later as a garage for the family cart. It's not an exceptional barn (though the witch marks are intriguing), but Sally uses it as a jumping off point to tell the sometimes rather grim story of the people who farmed the area and have often been rather whitewashed out of history. 

As well as plenty of fascinating material on rural life (hiring fairs, corn spirits, and a lot more about the guano industry than I had expected), it's also a very human history, focusing on the people whose lives changed over several centuries as times and technology changed around them, peppered with contemporary accounts from newspapers which really bring the book to life. For those of us from Yorkshire there is the added interest from its often hyperlocal examples of events (I worked as a journalist in some of the locations she mentions). Readable, fascinating, and just the right length, it's a reminder at a time when shepherds' huts are happily becoming more numerous again that the 30 second commute hasn't always been to a keyboard and a comfy chair.

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The Shedworker's Bookshelf - Shed Chic by Sally Coulthard

This is rather an important book. Until now - with a few honorable exceptions such as last year's Debra Prinzing's Stylish Sheds - books on sheds have had a distinctly male bias and focused almost entirely on the construction. Shed Chic (published by the Jacqui Small imprint of Aurum Press in conjunction with Country Living) quite rightly does include many photographs of shed and garden office exteriors (indeed there's an entire chapter on shedworking which is of course marvellous), but it's the focus on the interior that's particularly rewarding here and the fact that there are many female shed owners featured in its pages. Sally Coulthard has put together an encyclopaedic handbook to turning your shedlike atmosphere into somewhere special, whether it's a potting shed, garden office, guest room, separate dining area, playroom, and many more possibilities besides. The photographs are excellent and there are hundreds of them so you are bound to find inspiration here for your own shed.

Sadly, I suspect Shed Chic will be bought mainly by women, but if you're a chap, I heartily recommend you invest in a copy too. If you only buy one book on sheds this year, this should be it (and I'm not just saying that because Shedworking gets a namecheck).

We also have three copies to give away. To win, simply answer this simple question: What colour is Shedworking HQ painted on the outside? Either leave your answer in the comments below or email me directly. We'll put all the winners into a virtual sombrero and pull them out on April 20.
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A Brief History of the Countryside in 100 Objects

Technically, there's nothing significant in Sally Coulthard's new book about sheds or garden offices (though she did write it from one), but regular readers will recognise her name from her previous excellent books Shed Chic, How to Build a Shed, Shed Decor, Studio, and The Barn (all of which happily stand on Shedworking HQ's bookshelves) and so we thought you'd like to hear about this one too.

Written in Sally's usual authoritative but very readable style, she does exactly what she promises on the cover, providing a rural chronicle of life from a deer headdress from c. 9500 BC right up to a 21st century Robo-Bee. Although she grew up in the Yorkshire village of Calverley, she stretches her net widely to find intriguing items to discuss from around Britain (with occasional excursions abroad) - personal favourite sections include those on a 7th century Sutton Hoo bucket, a Merrills board from Wharram Percy village from the 13th century and an owl misericord from the 14th (I admit reading the piece on a 15th century 'bollock dagger' with slight trepidation but, ultimately, relief).

Yes, these are all objects, but Sally is really telling the stories of the people behind them. As she says in the book, it's 'a' history of the countryside rather than 'the' history of it, one with the actual men and women who lived, worked, and played in it front and centre. "A hundred objects was never going to be enough," she says, "but, hopefully, those I have chosen convey some of the ingenuity, oddness and sheer graft of all our rural forebears."

A Brief History of the Countryside in 100 Objects is published by HarperNorth which has come up trumps again with a smashing cover, lovely endpapers, and evocative line drawings to illustrate each item.

The Little Book of Building Fires - book review

Regular readers of this site will be familiar with friend of Shedworking Sally Coulthard and her previous books including Studio, Shed Chic, and Shed Decor. Her latest book, ideal for a last minute gift for Christmas (and just the right size for a Santa sack), is The Little Book of Building Fires ('How to chop, scrunch, stack & light a fire'). Though not specifically aimed at the garden office market, many shedworkers will certainly enjoy it and there are useful chapters on wood burners, choosing the best wood to burn, and making a fragrant fire (the Shedworking staff also enjoyed the chapter on scrunching newspapers). Written as always in her very readable style, the illustrations (in the style of the one pictured below) are especially charming. If you only buy two books this Christmas, as well as this one we'd strongly recommend Sally's.

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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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Shed Decor: How to decorate and furnish your favourite garden room

Whenever I'm interviewed by the media about the advantages of shedworking, high up on my list of reasons to invest in a garden office is that it is 'me space', somewhere where you can work but also indulge yourself a little. If you need any inspiration about how to turn your shedlike atmosphere into something really pleasant, then Sally Coulthard's new book Shed Decor is certainly for you.

The book is a follow-up to her also excellent Shed Chic which came out a few years ago. That tome was more about shed design and function, this one focuses on furnishing. The first half concentrates on six basic looks - rustic, vintage (my personal favourite), plain and simple, recycled, retro, and country (also popular among the Shedworking staff). Although it's nicely written as you'd expect from a writer with numerous successful design books under her belt), it's the photographs which really jump out and make the book. Each style is covered in detail with sections on essential elements and case studies, and while there is an obvious emphasis on the back garden shed, there are also beach huts, treehouses and various working spaces included.

The second half is a more hands-on section looking at actually how to make it happen, concentrating on subjects such as flooring, wall treatments, lighting, heating, storage, and seating, finishing off with a directory of where to go to find it all. All in all, it's a smashing book and an absolute must for anybody with a shed and it would be hard to imagine how it could be improved upon. On top of which Sally is a nice person so please do buy a copy.

Shedworking readers can take advantage of a special discount offer. So to order Shed Decor at the discounted price of £20 including p&p (RRP: £25 - UK only, please add £2.50 if ordering from overseas), telephone 01903 828503 or email mailorders@lbsltd.co.uk and quote the offer code APG285.

Huts & Hideaways (updated)

Huts & Hideaways is a new Helmsley-based business from Sally Coulthard, author of Shed Chic, building miniature shepherds huts for children. "As a mother of two small children, I know how much little people love spaces designed exclusively for them," she says, "a world where everything is child-sized, comforting and cosy. These portable cabins provide the perfect all-weather space for teddies tea parties, pirate games or summer sleepovers. They’re also a terrific focal point for your garden and a real talking point."

The design does not aim to recreate 19th century shepherds huts but instead capture the essence and charm of the shepherd's hut - however they are built using many of the traditional techniques used for vintage caravans including traditional canvas-bonded roofs (as you’d find on Victorian railway carriages) and tongue and groove timber cladding, as well as iron wheels hand-made by a local blacksmith. Each hut is painted both inside and out using Farrow & Ball Primer & Undercoat and Farrow & Ball Full Gloss. The huts are made using sustainable materials (e.g. Thermowood® timber for cladding, FSC softwood, etc).
As well as the website, if you're interested please call Sally on 01439 748513, email her at sallycoulthard@hotmail.co.uk or write to her at Huts & Hideaways, Stonegrave Lodge Farm, Stonegrave, North Yorkshire YO62 4LL.
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Shed names in new Idler magazine

The latest issue of the Idler magazine is out featuring my regular column on the world of garden offices and microarchitecture in general - this time I look at the names people call their sheds. If you want to find out what Sally Coulthard, author of Shed Chic, Shed Decor, and How to Build a Shed, calls hers, you'll have to buy a copy (ideally on subscription)... And for those who also like snooker, I focus my cue on the importance of keeping fit to perform on the green baize.

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Shed Chic winners + special Shedworking offer

Congratulations to the winners of our competition to win copies of Shed Chic by Sally Coulthard. Copies will be winging their way to Laura Fortune (quite a long wing that one) and Vicki Garlan who correctly identified the colour of Shedworking HQ (greenish).

But don't despair if you're not Laura or Vicki. Readers of Shedworking can order the book at the discounted price of £15.99 (rrp.£20) with free p&p if you call 01903 828503 quoting ref JS 218.
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Sheds in The Idler

The latest issue of The Idler is out now with my usual column about sheds inside (and also about snooker for those of you interested in baizecraft). It's a look at Shed lit, the books that every shedworker and shedowner will want to have handily on his or her bookshelf featuring the likes of Jane-Field Lewis, Sally Coulthard, Kathryn Ferry, Joel Bird, and Michael Pollan. Click the link above to find out more and subscribe. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Nuts and bolts: fitting out your garden office

Continuing our regularly irregular look at various bits and bobs of shedworking, today we're looking at the importance of garden office interior decor. While more and more people are embracing the shedworking lifestyle and using it to work from to set up their own businesses, staring at the same four walls day in day out can be rather boring so make sure you spruce the area up, just as you would do with your house.

How you decorate the interior is up to you (and we'd strongly recommend the book Shed Chic by Sally Coulthard as inspiration), but one possibility is to bring the greenery indoors. So consider co-ordinating your space with the outside environment, perhaps painting it green and bringing the vegetation inside with colourful plant pots and flowers. We've also seen nice examples of garden offices which have fairly straightforward traditional office furniture, but are then finished off with garden benches, patio chairs and indeed hammocks to add a bit of variety.

Obviously there are lots of places to buy these things but one that we like the look of is Trueshopping. Pictured above is an eDEN Garden Room which very much incorporates the horticultural ethic in its build. If you've got any decorating tips, please do leave a comment.

Female shedworkers

There's been a lot written about this subject following a 'survey' recently by a DIY superstore that women are buying more sheds (a trend that we have been writing about here on Shedworking for years). There's a nice piece in the Telegraph, focusing on several women shedworkers including a particularly extensive gallery of writer Ali Harris's garden office. Here's a snippet:

“She-sheds are a response to the old cliché about sheds being a male bastion,” says Sally Coulthard, author of Shed Decor, the essential tome for shed and interior design enthusiasts. “Women are reclaiming the shed to spend time outside the house, to be able to separate work, family life and me time.” A corrugated iron structure, riddled with damp and a dingy colour scheme, will simply not do: today’s incarnation comes with all the fixtures and fittings, like a miniature house, with an emphasis on decor that wouldn’t look out of place in a glossy magazine.

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Garden office ideas

There are several well illustrated books about decorating your shedlike atmospher (we'd particularly recommend those by Sally Coulthard), but if you're looking for a quick flick of online ideas, Ideal Home has put together '25 inspiring looks for your own outdoor room'. It's quite a wide range, but there's almost certainly something there that give you pause for creative thought.

Image courtesy Cuprinol.

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my cool shed by Jane Field-Lewis

A decade is a long time in shed books. Ten years ago, Gordon Thorburn's hugely successful book 'Men And Sheds' was published featuring an entirely male lineup of shedworkers, hobbyists and Suffragen Bishops, photographed by Laura Forrester in black and white (one per double spread), mostly unsmiling, all from the UK, and in very traditional sheds. It helped - as did the previous year's launch of readersheds.co.uk - to kickstart renewed interest in shedlike atmospheres.

Ten years on, and with Sally Coulthard's Shed Chic book in between, we now have Jane Field-Lewis's new book 'my cool shed - an inspirational guide to stylish hideaways and workspaces'. The huge number of photographs are in full colour, the sheds are from all over the world, and the sheddies are both male and female. There's even a sourcebook at the end to help you get the look as well as gorgeous endpapers (see image below). The term 'shedworking' is now used without explanation. Much has changed.

my cool shed is split into several sections looking at artists, musicians, retreats, gardeners, writers, workspaces and time out. Many of the people featured are shedworkers (indeed plenty of the 35 garden offices and sheds featured have appeared on this blog or in the Shedworking book) which underlines again how much has changed in shed useage since 2002. Each entry also has a section called 'style notes' which allows Jane - who is a professional multi-disciplinary stylist - to talk through the look of each shed with her expert eye.

Jane writes nicely and there's no pretentious gobbledygook. It's a lively read and her hard work in tracking down some marvellous sheds (I particularly like French artist Richard Texier's studio at the end of a pier) has paid off in spades. But what really makes it stand out are the several hundred photographs by Tina Hillier. She has absolutely got to grips with each of the sheds, picking out intriguing details inside as well as atmospheric exterior shots - even if you're familiar with some of these sheds, there are so many new shots of them that you won't be disappointed.

You should certainly buy my cool shed (published by Pavilion in hardback at £14.99) - not only is Jane a decent person, this will definitely be the best book about sheds published this year.

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Shed Chic preview

A nice piece by Sally Coulthard in The Sunday Times ahead of the publication of her new book Shed Chic next week casts a general eye over the world of shedlike atmospheres. As she says:

"Even in today’s depressed market, a shed can add modestly to your property’s price tag, but most people build one because they want to stay, not move, and they use them not only for storage, but as a place to work. Hence the rise of the shed-office, with a wireless broadband connection."

We'll be reviewing her book later in the week here on Shedworking. There's also a more general piece - Tips for shed heaven - in the same paper.
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George Clarke's (and Jane Field-Lewis's) Amazing Spaces - the book

A new series of George Clarke's Amazing Spaces starts tonight at 8pm on Channel 4 and it promises to be as intriguing as series one. To coincide with the first programme, Quadrille has also just published a book of the same name written by Mr Clarke and Jane Field-Lewis of My Cool Shed fame which we'd certainly recommend to readers of Shedworking.

Along similar lines to Ruth Slavid's Micro: Very Small Buildings, Sally Coulthard's Shed Chic and Phyllis Richardson's Big Ideas, Small Buildings series, it looks at a very wide variety of microarchitecture including familiar favourites such as beach huts, shepherds' huts, and garden offices (although what they call a 'schoffice' is surely a 'shoffice'?). There are extensive sections too on small buildings on wheels, repurposed and multifunctional spaces, and selfbuilds, and as you would expect it features plenty of examples from both television series in considerable detail.

Although it's not a 'how to' book, there is a huge amount of general and sensible practical advice (a minor quibble, it would have been useful to include some kind of 'where to go for more information' section for books, websites, suppliers, etc) and the standard of colour illustration is very high indeed. Indeed, the inspiring photographs - and there are huge numbers of them - are probably it's biggest selling point - it's easy to see how this would inspire readers to have a go themselves at thinking small. Certainly in the running for a Shedworking 2013 award.

Available from all the usual outlets but we'd encourage you to get it from your local independent seller.
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Is the term shed losing its meaning?

An excellent article from Sharon Dale, the always readable property expert at the Yorkshire Post, looks at the perennial issue of 'is that really a shed?' (pictured is the Hobbit House, one of this year's finalists). Among those she talks to are Sally 'Chic Shed' Coulthard, and myself. Here's a snippet of what Sally says:

“For me, sheds are just as easily defined by what they are not. They are not supposed to be permanent living accommodation or a replacement for a home; sheds also can’t be built from permanent materials like brick or stone, they need to be materials that can be deconstructed or moved if necessary, like wood or metal sheeting. For me, a shed is a retreat, or an extra space, that enhances your home, somewhere you can express yourself or carve out a quiet corner. “

Lloyd Alter at Treehugger has also pondered the definition of 'eco shed' and adds:

Actually, for many years I have been wondering what the traditional definition of a shed actually was, thinking that many of the entries in the past were #NotAShed. And I always thought that there should be some kind of separation between the architect-designed posh sheds and the hand-built-by-salt-of-the-earth types, the archetype being my favourite, Alex Holland’s winner from 2013.

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