Monday, September 30, 2013

Domeworking


"Here is my earthen dome," writes Shedworking reader, graphic designer and natural builder Jeffrey Hart. "While it was not initially designed as an office, the desk setup does allow for a great quiet place to sit and work! It was built for $200 over 2 months in Oregon. The majority of materials were either reclaimed or were sourced from site." You can see more photos and an excellent write-up of the build at Jeffrey's site where you can take a look at his other projects - take a look in particular at the shedlike Playhouse.


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

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Garden office, beach hut and shepherd's hut insurance



If you're looking for general shedlike atmosphere insurance Love Your Hut is a new name on the market and worth investigating since their policies are deliberately aimed at owners of beach huts, chalets, shepherd’s huts and shedworkers. Their policy is all risks, including fire, subsidence and sea inundation, plus your liability as a shedowner and for clerical-related business use, as well as contents. If you are a Member of a Beach Hut Owners’ Association, you also get a premium discount? Lots more details at their website.
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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, September 24, 2013

Boulton & Paul summerhouse: advice please

Reader John Boulton (no relation) is on the lookout for help regarding his Boulton & Paul summerhouse, an example of which is pictured. "We have a dilapidated one in Essex which about 60 years ago I recall being pushed round in as a child," he writes. "It was moved to another part of the garden probably 45 years ago, but seems to be without any underfloor mechanism for revolving. I tried metal detecting where it used to be but just a few rusty bits of bolt emerged. I would be interested in resurrecting it properly, as it has most of the original cedar panels, sliding windows and door etc. Would anyone who has worked on one of these please be able to advise on what the revolving mechanism would have looked like? Or in fact any specifications." Please leave your comments below or contact me directly and I'll put you in touch with John. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Monday, September 23, 2013

A day in the life of shedworker Joanne Harris


Author and shedworker Joanne Harris (see our exclusive interview with her here) has written a nice piece about her 'normal' working day. Here's a snippet:
"When it was built, two years ago, the shed was bare and monastic. I didn’t have any internet - I wanted to avoid distractions. Since then, I’ve accumulated: books, an armchair; an enormous tree-root; candles; a kettle; some artwork; a kite; a Chinese parasol and many, many tea-mugs. Turns out I thrive on distractions. I also have the internet, partly because I was tired of having to run to the house to check my e-mails and messages."
You can read the rest of the piece on her tumblr. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Stephen Waddington's shedworking commute

We've featured shedworker and PR supremo Stephen Waddington on Shedworking before and he spreads the word about garden offices regularly on Twitter where indeed he has posted this inspirationally pleasant Vine of his commute to work. ----------------------------------------------------------
Friday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Joe Hemming: shedworker



The excellent Bible of British Taste has a nice feature on the marvellous Penzance-based letter cutter and carver Joe Hemming who they describe as a "part-time shed-dweller" as well as being a shedworker. "Next to his workshops across the fields near St. Buryan, there is a living cabin for summer use and another bed-sitting hut for guests," they write. Lots more atmospheric photographs on their site.
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Homestead Timber Buildings - Manufacturers of Quality Timber Buildings

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

New look garden office roof



"In liaison with Aled at Tata-Steel in Chester, we have developed a completely new kind of roof that is fully compliant with permitted development and offers a real alternative to the typical flat roof cedar box," writes Richard Grace of  Garden Structures. "The building in the photos is a garden office recently installed by us in Northampton for a software engineer and his wife who is a teacher.

"The roof is curved and tilting only 1 degree to rear. It is insulated with a GSL manufactured curved structural insulated panel containing 100mm of celotex insulation. The total thickness of the roof is 145mm and expected no maintenance lifespan of over 30 years. At the top of the curve the roof measures 2.5m from the ground and is fully compliant with pd. Our calculations show that the canteleverel canopy shown here at 400mm could extend to 500mm without further support. The lowest two points of the redwood tgv wooden ceiling (part of the sip) is supported by a visible curved wooden truss is 2100mm (ok for all but the very tallest). The internal walls are finished in plasterboard (dry lined) with redwood window reveals.

"This office has a particularly high insulation spec featuring a new kind of window developed by us this year with help from Bernard of Illingworth Ingham in Manchester and is clad in 20mm rough sawn random wany edge siberian larch. All structural timber was supplied by Colin Myers Widnes and Chester.

"We are currently working on a 6.5m open span of the same system in a pd building with 30sqm footprint close to central london for use as a therapy studio for an established practice. Part of the client consideration was the number of surrounding properties looking down on the roof."
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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, September 17, 2013

Homemade treehouse competition, plus win a beach hut


Tree house specialists Blue Forest in East Sussex are about to run a competition to find the best 'homemade' tree house on their Facebook site. To take part you just need to upload a picture of a tree house you have built and their jury will pick the winner. Meanwhile crisp folk Tyrrells are running another competition on their Facebook site for which you can win a jauntily-painted beach hut (and some mugs).

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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, September 16, 2013

Teenager's study room




Here's a good 'before and after' of the latest build by Tiny House UK in Middlesex. It's a 3.5mx 4m garden cabin based on a their tiny house house on wheels design and will  be used as a teenager's study room squeezed in to the bottom of a garden surrounded by other garden structures in neighbouring gardens. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Student shedworking


These shedlike atmospheres by Tengbom are for students to both work and live in. They're only 10 square metres and a prototype is currently on show at the Virserum Art Museum in Småland, Sweden. Tengbom describe it as "a student unit for students which is affordable, environmental-friendly and smart both in terms of design and choice of materials". While this is very definitely designed for students, the firm does admit that it would also make a good office.


In 2014, 22 units will be built and ready for students to move into, each with a comfortable sleeping-loft, kitchen, bathroom and a small garden with a patio. More details and images at Gizmag.


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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

Monday, September 09, 2013

Allan Ahlberg: shedworker


The bestselling author of Each Peach Pear Plum, Peepo! and dozens of other marvellous children's books is a longstanding supporter of shedworking, as he explains in the BBC video above."I've always had a shed" he reveals.

"I wake up before 6am, listen to the radio for a bit and then take a cup of coffee down to the shed, which is where I write," he explained in a nice article for The Daily Telegraph at the weekend. "At that time of day there is no one around. At about lunchtime my motor runs out. I have a can of soup and at 1pm I go to sleep – I mean actually get undressed and go to bed. I might do a bit more in the afternoon. I’m like a dripping tap. I don’t do very much at one time but I do it seven days a week so it is constant. This is the fourth shed I have owned. I line the walls with bits of work that children have sent me, photographs of my family, cartoons and clippings from the newspaper. They’re all yellowed now, and a snail has started chewing its way up from the bottom. But I love being surrounded by this cosy panorama as I work."

The garden office does sound cosy. A feature in the Guardian a couple of years ago revealed that "covering every inch of the pin-boarded walls is the history of 35 years of a writing life that has produced more than 140 books for children, from picture books to poetry to stories. There are notes, drawings, family photos, ancient toys that have been brought to life in stories, layouts, shelves of proofs. "If I get stuck for an answer, I can just start reading the walls." -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Thursday, September 05, 2013

The loggiest garden office cabin ever: video

We mentioned musician and comedian Hans Liberg's fantastic shedworking log cabin a couple of years ago designed by Piet Hein Eek. But we've just come across this jolly video of it which shows us the inside... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homestead Timber Buildings - Manufacturers of Quality Timber Buildings

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Christian Payne's shedworking commute

We've featured Christian several times before on Shedworking and his garden office has even won a coveted Shedworking Award. Here's one of his Vines extolling the virtues of a shedlike commute. -----------------------------------------------------
Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here

Tuesday, September 03, 2013

Shepherds' huts open day

After last year’s Shepherd’s Hut Open Days as part of the national heritage open day scheme, the fine folk at Historic Shepherdshuts are throwing open their doors again in Barford (where they are based). Local villagers have formed a history group and four open buildings and 16 sites will be taking part in this year’s Heritage Festival event which runs September 13-15. A special Huttist’s day will be held on September 15, with artisans, restorers, hut insurers, a Huttist Pop-up Big Breakfast and shepherd hut devotees, all gathering together. For more information see www.shepherdhuts.co.uk or www.barfordhistory.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Monday, September 02, 2013

Gareth Hughes: shedworker




London-based web designer Gareth Hughes was kind enough to send in some photos of his garden office (as well as some very kind words about the Shedworking book and blog).
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.