“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 January 4.
The theme music to the Inspector Morse television series was written by Australian composer Barrington Pheloung (1954 – 2019) who lived and worked in the UK for many years. Pheloung not only wrote the theme tune but all the incidental music too, as he did for the prequel to Morse, Endeavour, and the sequel Lewis.
And he was also a shedworker. He's pictured above in his garden office and below at work as he talks to Andy Brown, music director of the London Metropolitan Orchestra, in his music studio about how he put together the Morse music.
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As well as working in a shedlike environment, you can also live in one. Graham Ely lives in a Norwegian Log cabin holiday home near his family and friends in Dorset. Three years ago he decided to downsize and saw a lodge holiday home at Merley House Holiday Park near Wimborne. “This is what I wanted, something solid that would really last”, he says. “I got in touch with Norwegian Log and waited three to four months for ordering and then it took six weeks to erect. The process was as smooth as silk.”
Norwegian Log homes comply with the Caravan Act so can be sited in leisure developments like Merley House Holiday Park, as well as in residential areas for family annexes.
"The place is just fantastic, it’s really warm and it has everything you want. I’m just really surprised the government doesn’t buy loads to house families, or more younger people don’t buy them, as they are just brilliant!” His traditional-style log home features three bedrooms, two bathrooms, galley kitchen, utility space, hallway and a large outdoor decking area. The building has double thickness walls and insulation,
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Here is the latest build from Garden Affairs's contemporary Linea range, a 5m x 3m fully insulated
garden room. "It nicely sums up what this year has been all about," says co-owner Poppy Squires. "This customer not only desperately needed
an office to work from home, but also wanted to incorporate a break out
space for the whole family, hence the sofa bed and chill out zone.
"So many of our customers have not only found themselves working from home in any available space, during this strange year - one customer was working from a child’s size playhouse! - but they have now been told by their employers that they will be working from home for the foreseeable future. When both adults in a house are working at home, the kids are off school and they live in open plan housing, the options are severely limited for a quiet work place."
Like all Linea garden rooms, it's clad in durable horizontal larch wood cladding, and designed with no roof overhang so that you can site your building tight to a boundary, to make the most of the available space. They can be fully customised and also include a shed section or even a kitchen and bathroom (see bottom image of a Linea Duo).
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This great little series looking at tax and shedworking by Helen Thornley, Technical Officer at
The Association of Taxation Technicians, continues on accountingWEB with Helen's looking at running costs, rental charges, expense recharge, and private residence relief (among other issues). Here's a snippet about capital gains tax:
Where the pod has any private use, that should avoid a restriction on private residence relief (PRR) for capital gains tax, when the individual comes to sell their home with or without the pod.
This CGT relief is denied on any part of a dwelling house which is used exclusively for the purposes of a trade or business (s224(1) TCGA 1992). Where there is such exclusive use, then the gain relating to that room or area needs to be apportioned out and tax charged. The same principle applies to any free-standing structure like a pod in the garden of the dwelling and the land on which it stands.
Provided that the new home office is not used exclusively for work purposes PRR should not be restricted. While the test of ‘exclusive’ business use is quite high, the HMRC manuals do suggest that occasional or minor private use is insufficient to avoid the PRR restriction and it expects to see regular residential use.
There is unlikely to be an issue where the pod doubles as a play room, or has a sofa and television in the office to watch TV with (or away from) the family, or contains gym or craft equipment – pods can be put to lots of other purposes outside working hours.
Image courtesy eDEN Garden Rooms
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Some Christmassy garden offices to start your week. Above, the Arctic Cabin owned by Philip, and below a Smart model with a kitchen fitted inside.
And here's Lee Denham's Christmas tree in his new garden office in York.
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A remarkable kitchen from Tiny House Cabins constructed in their latest build. Inspired by The Flinstones cartoons, the idea for the rustic kitchen look came from the client. It features two inch thick elm slabs as worktops, complete with original bark, and oak doors with 'live edges'. Below, you can see a shedworking set up using another large elm slabs turned into a desk.
More details and pictures of the Flinstone kitchen here.
Interesting times as another homes developer is adding garden offices to its new build offering (see here for our look at what Thakeham are doing too). Bellway has launched its garden office feature at its Heatherley Wood development at Alderley Park, close to Alderley Edge in Cheshire. It is an optional extra for buyers of the bespoke four, five or six bedroom homes - the prototype garden studio can be viewed in the garden of plot 13 at the development where prices range from £750,000 to £1,125,000.
“With more of us working from home, a trend that looks set to continue well into 2021, a home office is a must," said Hollie Reynolds, sales director at Bellway. "The garden studio is a fantastic option and fits perfectly in a corner garden plot. It is a thoroughly modern home office and we are one of the first housebuilders in the region to introduce the pod as an optional extra."
As you'd expect it's fully insulated, and includes a desk, leather high back desk chair, additional feature chair, potted plant, artwork and shelving.
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A rather nice Swift Garden Rooms build in Aintree, Liverpool, now operating as the Vivid hair salon. It's a 4m x 5.5m space, with composite cladding, plus aluminium doors and windows in anthracite grey.
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One of the biggest changes in how we work in the last 10 years has been co-working. Shedworking is all in favour of this where it works for the individual, but if you want to combine co-working with shedworking, then this garden office from a range offered by Prestige Pods is well worth investigating.
As you can see above, there's plenty of glass in the Large Ovalhouse model - and therefore light- in the attractively rounded construction and it in fact seats 14 (they claim). It has a stainless steel frame and multiple laminsted spruct timber arcs, plus a lockable French doore entrance. Inside there are two separate tables and LED lighting.
Alternatively, there's a small version below along similar lines which measure 2.6m high x 3.8m wide.
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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
Nick Ferrier, Director of Jackson-Stops’ Midhurst branch, said that there was a particularly noticeable increase in demand from London-based buyers wanting to move out of the capital. "This surge in demand is expected to continue into next year," he said. "Even when offices begin to re-open many of our clients plan to work remotely at least once a week.
“While homes with annexes have always proved popular with buyers for use as an office, we’re expecting a surge in demand for this type of property next year. Annexes will be highly sought after and valued throughout 2021 as people continue to work from home and crave a space which sits outside their current residence to do so, essentially allowing them to ‘leave work at the office’, despite that office now is just a couple of metres away.
“Over lockdown annexes have been a saving grace for many who wanted to be close to elderly parents to offer support and company during a difficult year. In addition to flexible living, an annexe can also provide a second source of income to those who wish to rent them out as a holiday home or even as office space to nearby residents.”
Photo courtesy OECO Garden Rooms
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Photo courtesy Cabin Master
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In an excellent piece for Forbes about where people are choosing to work from now that they're working from home ('My Space: Where Do You Work?'), longtime friend of Shedworking Dave Howell talks to various shedworkers including Ben Derbyshire and Caroline Kenyon (an anti-food poverty campaigner who says productivity trebled when she turned her roomy shed into a garden office, pictured below). He also chats to Ryan Jackson, pictured above, who moved to Bali a couple of months ago when he realised he could work from anywhere. Well worth a read.
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A lovely piece of work by artist Liam O'Farrell. Click the link for more details about his trip to the famous writing hut in Wales and for other examples of his art.
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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
Your garden office windows do not need to be square. Here's a fine example from London-based Rise Design Studio of a major project they worked on in Harlesden which included a garden office for a new fashion company.
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"The commute is not as bad as it used to be #WFH I’ve gone from 3 hours each way once or twice a week to maybe 40 seconds... what a lovely winter's morning."
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