Saturday, July 31, 2021

Garden office kettle

The Shedworking staff has read several tweets in recent weeks about what to do when you fancy a cup of [insert drink of choice] and you're in your garden office and it's banging down with rain. For new shedworkers, setting up your workspace is key to making it a 'happy place' and one of the must-haves is certainly a kettle and a supply of [insert drink of choice]. There are obviously many models to choose from but you probably want to keep the size fairly small and you want it to be reliable, so one option is Smeg's brand new Mini Kettle which is specifically designed for smaller spaces like home offices. It has a 0.8L capacity, chrome handle, stainless steel spout, and comes in various colours including Pastel Blue, Pastel Green, Pink, Cream, Red, Black and White. It's hitting the shops on August 3.

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

Saturday posts are sponsored by woowoo waterless toilets, the best toilet for your garden office

 

Friday, July 30, 2021

Six of the best pub sheds

We've been talking a lot recently about multi-use garden offices which mix business with pleasure so let's ease into the weekend with a rather pleasant roundup of six of the best pub sheds from Waltons (who also have a specific garden bar model). The one above belongs to Grant and Lisa in Scotland who have furnished it with IKEA chairs and grey throws, two flamingos, and three ceramic flying parrots, with colour changing neon strip lighting. Click the top link for the other five.

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

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

Thursday, July 29, 2021

Hobbit-themed garden office workshop

 
A remarkable self-build by Ali Hughson from South Queensferry, Edinburgh, and a longtime fan of The Lord of the Rings. It's a timber-framed Hobbit-themed workshop, measuring around 2m x 3m, in which he produces wood art. It's not quite finished yet - he has plans to add a green roof and a log burner - but it's still looking pretty fabulous. More details and photos in the Daily Record and a great video below in which Ali shows us around his Hobbit House.
  

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

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

BBQ cabin garden office

 


There are plenty of mix 'n match options in terms of garden offices. Here's a possibility worth considering from Arctic Cabins. It's their 10m² BBQ cabin model but with an extension, which means that as well as being used regularly for cooking and as a chillout space for the children at the weekend, it can also be used by the client as a garden office with a Beatles theme.

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

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.

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Garden office for an accountant


When Shedworking started 15 years ago, most garden offices were owned by those in creative industries (writers, artists, etc) or in IT. But times have changed and while those types of shedworkers are still very well represented, garden offices have become the workplaces for people in a very wide range of jobs. In the last couple of years, we've noticed increasing numbers of accountants going down the garden office route, and here's an example from eDEN Garden Rooms.

Pre-garden office, Daren had worked from a box room at home and done a lot of commuting, but the new build in unused space at the side of his house has fixed those problems, and indeed has been able to grow the business. Features include a lavatory and a kitchenette with space for two desks plus storage. Here's what he says about it:

"My wife works at home too and it’s so nice on a Friday to shut up the office and switch off of work for the weekend when I am able to. It really allows you to split home and work. I now also have the option to bring the more local clients to my office, which I would never have done in the box room, and I know they will be wowed by the space.”

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

  Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of                    contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of     which do not require planning

 


Monday, July 26, 2021

Soundproofed music studio


The third and final in our little mini-series of posts about building garden studios for musicians. The soundproofing for this garden office in Leicestershire was carried out by Quietco, a specialist soundproofing/sound reduction manufacturer and installer.

The actual build is rather attractive from the outside wiith Iroko horizontal wooden cladding and slate pillars. But the real magic is inside where the sounds of the guitars and drums setup have been kept entirely within the build. You can read more about the technical details here but here's a snippet: 

One of the most important aspects of any soundproof studio in the garden is the roof. Look at the thickness of the roof on this soundproof studio in this garden. This roof was designed by Jim Prior the founder of Quietco. It has three 0% condensation risk assessments approved by two major insulation companies as well as the top brass at the NFRC (National Federation of Roofing Contractors) who also approved and praised the design. It comprises of our TPS80C trademark ceiling system installed beneath 10-inch rafters and even has a meadow grass sedum roof on the top.

Well worth a browse. 

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

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




 

Sunday, July 25, 2021

Ming Dynasty garden studio

A lovely little snippet from Smarthistory, a river landscape by master painter Shen Zhou (1427 - 1509) called A Spring Gathering (detail above) which is owned by the Smithsonian in Washington DC. More details at the link about the artist and the work, but this is the section that caught our eye:

Artists during the Ming Dynsaty (1368–1644) often honored their patrons by portraying them in a garden studio, thus commenting on the owner’s character and aesthetic taste. The painting here should not be taken as a realistic depiction of either Hua Fang or his property. Rather, Shen was suggesting Hua as a cultivated host in a well-designed, natural-looking garden.

Quite. 

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

Sunday posts are sponsored by Henshalls Insurance, specialists in insuring garden offices and other garden buildings. Click here for more information.

 

Friday, July 23, 2021

Two garden office music studios


An excellent podcast from Tonebenders called Building A Backyard Studio Roundtable looks at how two professional sound editors have put together impressive garden office setups. Al Sirkett (Bohemian Rhapsody, Swallows and Amazons, Les Misérables), whose build is pictured top, and Lucy Mitchell (EastEnders, Derry Girls, Death in Paradise), who runs LJ Studios (interior pictured above) talk about all the important aspects of why and how to set up a studio in the back garden. It's not a short listen but it's well worth it if this is something you are thinking about as these two really know their stuff.

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

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

 

Thursday, July 22, 2021

Garden office studio for music producer


The first of two music-related garden office builds (the next one tomorrow), here is one for a music producer Alan by eDEN Garden Rooms. In fact it's the second one Alan has bought from eDEN - he bought his first in 2013 but then moved house some years later.

This second one with bifold doors and integrated shed store is 4.35m x 3m and as well as the normal office elements such as a desk, it is also home to various instruments including a keyboard and drum kit.  

“If we moved again, we would certainly need another garden office," said Alan. "It’s difficult to imagine life without it. I consider it to be an investment over the years, and it has paid for itself when you compare it to renting the equivalent space, with the added convenience of it being at home.”

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

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

 

Wednesday, July 21, 2021

The rise and rise of the beach hut

A nice piece in The Guardian by Sirin Kale - Sun, swimming, smoking and seagulls: a day in the life of beach hut Britain - takes a stroll along the prom in Brighton and Hove and includes chats with plenty of beach hut owners, largely about the problems of locks. Some lovely photos and it gives a real sense of why people love their huts so much. Well worth a read.

Image courtesy Brighton & Hove-based Scott Jardine, the selfstyled Beach Hut Man who builds, repairs and paints beach huts.

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

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.

 

Tuesday, July 20, 2021

CARRavan: towable writing cabin




Life Space Cabins produce bespoke shedlike atmospheres for a wide variety of purposes. Our eye was paraticularly caught by this one, the Carravan, which was designed and constructed during lockdown. Built for a writer, it's a moveable cabin - a steel structure on a hand-built chassis with large double-glazed aluminium windows/doors, clad in angled slatted larch painted black - that can be towed by a tractor around the client's large farm in Sussex. The large amount of glass used in the build helps to, as they say, "bring the outside in" and it's also off-grid, with two drop down shutters that turn into decks. Features include a small kitchen and bathroom, but our favourite touch is a mirror on the skirt of the cabin that hides the chassis and reflects the grass it stands on. Lots more photos and details here.

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

  Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of                    contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of     which do not require planning

 

Monday, July 19, 2021

Shepherd's hut bookshop


Olivia Rosenthall, owner of Maldon Books has come up with a marvellous way to combine bookselling with summer shedworking, she has opened a pop-up bookshop in a shepherd’s hut in the town's Promenade Park (pictured above). 

"The restrictions have made it very difficult to do all the things that we wanted to do, and being a small premises, we weren't sure of what might be possible for us outside of lockdown. So we put our heads together and we came up with The Book Hut," said Olivia, whose bookshop won the National Book Tokens Newcomer of the Year Award two years ago, and continues to trade successfully on the High Street.
 
The Book Hut, partly funded by the Booksellers Association, has a range of adults and children's books, and will also host author events, signings and story sessions. It is open Monday - Saturday 10am - 4pm, and Sunday 11am - 4pm, until the end of September.

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

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



Friday, July 16, 2021

Wendy House converted into garden office

A tremendous build here from Dave of building and property experts J4 Projects. It was originally a nicely-built homemade timber play space with a cedar shingle roof and oak door. But instead of simply knocking it all down and building a larger garden office, he simply modified the frame, kept the roof, and rebuilt it to his own specifications. The result is one of our favourite builds this year. More photos of the transformation and details of how it was done here.

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

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

 

Thursday, July 15, 2021

Getting wifi in your garden office

An evergreen question for new shedworkers is sorting out the question of wifi in the garden office. We've covered it several times before, but here is a good new general guide from Wired (who are naturally something of experts on this issue). Here's a snippet:

If you have a large garden, large house or just worry that Wi-Fi extenders won’t be quite enough for what you have in mind, invest in a mesh network. They aren't too dissimilar to Wi-Fi extenders, but they’re typically more powerful, reliable and effective when it comes to creating a network of multiple sources of Wi-Fi around your home and into your garden.

Put simply, a mesh network is a group of devices that act as a single Wi-Fi network. Instead of boosting a signal from a single router, they all act as additional sources - or points - of Wi-Fi around the house and they communicate with each other wirelessly.

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

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

Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Garden office for business consultant


Shedworking has become a major new alternative to the 'traditional' office during the coronavirus pandemic and here's an example of just that, via an eDEN Garden Rooms build for Simon Lamb who owns and runs business consultancy/leadership trainer Purposeful Change.

Simon had fortunately already planned to go down the garden office route just before lockdown kicked in and set up shop in his studio less than a month before the first 2020 full lockdown. He has replaced the former international travel that was central to his business with an impressive interior provided by interior designers Guthrie and Kirkwood, turning it into a full broadcast suite. He was then able to provide all his services onlin. 

“I still sometimes have to get up at 3am due to the time difference in the countries where I am delivering my training," he says, "but I now only have to commute 10 meters. I get to spend so much more time with my family, and being around has become more important than ever.”

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

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.

 

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Turtle Bunbury: shedworker


Inspired by Dylan Thomas's writing shed, writer and television broadcaster Turtle Bunbury became a shedworker in February last year, working now from a writing cabin built by Timber Living using 150-year-old Norway spruce grown in Siberia. It's black on the outside (very on trend) but classic white for the interior from where he has marvellous views. Here's how he described it to the Irish American Post:

I used to work in a windowless garret but everything changed in February, 2020, when the electrician flicked a switch and so powered up my new office – a timber studio in our garden, made out of Siberian pine, painted ash black, with a view straight onto the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains. The timing could not have been better. We were on lockdown within a few weeks and I think our family’s sanity was saved by the fact I had my man cave to flee to. Ally [his wife] has an astounding ability to be able to write a novel with a radio playing and the children and hamsters sitting on her head. I need complete tranquility to focus. 

Here he is talking from the shed during the lockdowned West Cork Literary Festival last August.


 And here's a link to another article about the garden office.

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

  Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of                    contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of     which do not require planning

 

Monday, July 12, 2021

Writer's cabin

The kind of writer’s cabin many writers dream of, this one is in the countryside just north of Madrid and built by Spanish architects MuDD for a children’s book author. Plenty of marvellous features including floor to ceiling windows, a spectacular curving pine bookcase, 20cm thick stone wool insulation (it gets cold in winter in Madrid, despite what many people think), and a large chiminea in the middle of the building to make everything warm and cosy. Th roof is made of folded oxidized iron. Remarkably, the project was carried out during the pandemic.


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

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

 

Sunday, July 11, 2021

A guide to beach hut prices

The fine folk at money.co.uk have put together an interesting piece of research into Britain's beach huts. Their findings reveal that:

* Barry Island huts are the most searched for, followed by West Wittering beach (Chichester, West Sussex), Sandbanks (Poole, Dorset), and Camber Sands (East Sussex). South Strand beach (Angmering, West Sussex) came last

* The most affordable beach huts are at Mablethorpe (Lincolnshire), Dawlish (Devon), and Broadsands (also Devon)

* The most expenseive beach huts are in Wells (Norfolk), Herne Bay (Kent), and Mudeford (Bournemouth)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday posts are sponsored by Henshalls Insurance, specialists in insuring garden offices and other garden buildings. Click here for more information.


Saturday, July 10, 2021

Turn your shed into a bar for the Euros final

 

Bar sheds are pretty much the hottest on trend shed at the moment and it's not (quite) too late to convert yours for the big match thanks to a step by step IKEA-style image guide from selco builders warehouse. They reckon it can be done in an afternoon for £150 by people with fairly low level skills and no previous experience...  You can get all the details, how much it should all costs, and which tools you'll require at the link above, and there's a helpful video below. Happy shedworking!

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

Saturday posts are sponsored by woowoo waterless toilets, the best toilet for your garden office

Friday, July 09, 2021

Campervan garden office


Stories about 'digital nomads' were very trendy a few years ago, but have rather declined, so it is interesting to read about writer Paige Toon (her latest is Someone I Used to Know which has just been published) and her campervan Hermie (in which that novel was written, above) which has a bit of a twist in the tale...

Now into its third decade, the Mercedes Vito Westfalia van was originally used by Paige and her family for short breaks and day trips, and indeed made it into her novel The Last Piece of My Heart. Unfortunately it became rather unreliable, but rather than ditch it or sell it, she decided quite rightly to turn Hermie into a garden studio, relocated to the bottom of her garden. Not only does it have marvellous views over the nearby fields, it still has its electrics intact so Paige can easily make tea or use the fridge.

You can read an interview with Paige about Hermie in the Cambridge Independent here.

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

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

 


 

Thursday, July 08, 2021

Virtual garden office tour

 

Technology is increasingly becoming a major boon to garden office suppliers. We revealed SMART's new augemented reality app last week, and here is another clever little virtual tour offered by Booths Garden Studios.

If you can't get to their workshop to see their studios and annexes, this clever gadget enables you to take a look around four different builds, an L-shaped annexe, a rectangular annexe, a QC garden office (their most popular office size) and a large QC6 studio so you can get quite a good feel for them. You can whizz around the rooms with your mouse (or finger if you're browsing on mobile) and inspect what's on offer. 

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

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