Saturday, December 24, 2022

Merry Christmas to all our readers

“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 3.

Friday, December 23, 2022

Greg Jenner's garden office soundproofing tips

Historian and broadcaster Greg Jenner has been hard at work recently soundproofing his garden office. He's very kindly written an excellent thread about it on Twitter, complete with images, for anybody considering going down this route, particularly those who are podcasters. Greg's top tip:

Soundproofing is mostly about three things: 

1) adding dense mass (acoustic plasterboard) 

2) isolating internal walls from ext. walls, so sound energy dissipates in the between space - you wanna stop ‘Drum Effect’ (hence metal clips on the rafters) 

3) sealing all air gaps

 Strong recommend.  

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

Thursday, December 22, 2022

Christmas shed decorations

A few inspirational garden shed Christmas decoration ideas as we hurtle towards the 25th. Here's Neil's yuletided hut from Arctic Cabins. "We absolutely love seeing how our wonderful owners decorate their grill huts ready for Xmas," say the specialist BBQ cabin supplier, "and Neil hasn't disappointed! He's all prepped & ready to go...how inviting does it look!"


Every year, shedworker Joanne Harris provides a daily stream of excellent #shedvent tweets. This year's has inspired Lynne Nicholson to share her homemade Christmas shed, complete with Christmas lights and cotton wool ball snow, in an old flour caddy.


And finally here's Laura's Allotment Christmas shed ornament on her tree. 

If you've Christmassed up your garden office or studio, we'd love to feature you on Shedworking so please get in touch.

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

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Garden office with a store room



A 5.9m x 3.3m x 2.5m garden office with store room by Garden Spaces, one that needed planning permission as the property is in a conservation area. An interesting build, since the customer had already built the large decking area before the garden office build started. Features include thermowood cladding treated enhanced with Danish Oil, Harvest oak laminate flooring inside, and a passive infrared motion sensor on the exterior. The store room, walls and ceiling were finished in OSB, with extra plywood added to the floor as requested by the new owner.

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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, December 20, 2022

Christmas gingerbread sheds

We've talked about festive gingerbread sheds on Shedworking in previous years, but if you'd rather buy a kit than make one yourself there are a few possibilities still out there. Above is the quite compact kit from flying tiger which includes 150g of gingerbread, enough to build three sheds (you need to do the icing and decoration yourself, as well as the assembly of course). The gingerbread is made with sustainable palm oil.

 

Alternatively, you could head to Waitrose for one of their Gingerbread Chalet Kits (styled as a house kit in this image but also marketed as 'chalet' elsewhere). You get a gingerbread mix sachet, white royal icing sachet, red writing icing pen, and boiled sweets, plus a piping bag. All you need is some unsalted butter, water and honey/syrup if you want extra sweetness.

There's just time to get one sent from Honeywell Bakes too. They provide you with a template, piping bags, cake board, decorations, icing and all the dry ingredients to bake the gingerbread shed. All packaging is eco-friendly, and a percentage from every sale is donated to their charity partner, 1% For The Planet.

Finally, rather more fancily, is Eddingtons' 20 piece kit available from Selfridges, complete with nine cookie cutters, six icing bags, four nozzles, recipe and decoration instructions

An honourable mention to Nikki Wills who lives literarlly just round the corner from Shedworking HQ and runs the marvellous tikkido.com. This year, she has been reproducing some of the many pubs in St Albans in gingerbread format (see her instagram page), including the Shedworking staff's local, the White Hart Tap.

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Malvern Garden Buildings offer a premium collection of garden buildings, displayed at 11 UK showsites.

Monday, December 19, 2022

Wintry writing sheds

More wintry writing sheds. Above, the garden office belonging to economist and author (The Future of the Professions and A World Without Work) Daniel Susskind (in which he is coming to the end of the last chapter in his forthcoming book). Below, the path to the writing shed - complete with fairy lights - belonging to historian and novelist Dr Deborah Harkness.

 

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

Sunday, December 18, 2022

Garden studio, winter morning , -7°

A lovely shot by illustrator Johanna Maria Voss of her atmospheric, if chilly, garden studio in Hessen, Germany, earlier today.

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Sunday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, contemporary living spaces offering premium quality, bespoke buildings without the hefty price tag

Friday, December 16, 2022

Friday Finery: Studio bar



It's time for another in our semi-irregular Friday Finery series of posts. This week it's this newly completed studio/bar from Blue Forest. Features include a particularly fine curved walkway.

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

 

Thursday, December 15, 2022

Garden office with thermowood cladding

 
A pre-snow Garden Spaces build for use as a garden office, measuring 4.2m x 4.9m x 2.5m. Special features include:
* screw pile foundation
* aluminium bi folding door
* external finish
* front - thermowood cladding painted with woodstain ebony oil 
* other elevations - cement particle boards painted in RAL9005 resifine 
* composite decking black
* laminate flooring Smoked oak

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

Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Monty Don's Christmas writing shed


An early Christmas present from gardener and broadcaster Monty Don to shedworkers everywhere, his writing shed with a yuletide touch. More on Monty Don's garden office on Shedworking here.

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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, December 13, 2022

Le festival des cabanes

It's the eighth outing for his marvellous festival in France, Le festival des cabanes (site available in English and German as well as French). Here's what they say about it:

The hut festival is a festival of architecture. It questions us about the relationship we have with nature. How do we settle there? What relationship do we have with our landscapes, with our environment? How do we find our rightful place? It seems that these questions are deeply topical. The hut festival as a new beginning, a way of looking to the future.
Entrants build models in the early part of the year which are then judged by a professional panel, and the winners get to see their designs built in time for the summer for public admiration until November. There's plenty to enjoy on the site, including details and designs from previous years.

Thanks to the eagle-eyed Uncle Wilco from readersheds.com for spotting this.

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Malvern Garden Buildings offer a premium collection of garden buildings, displayed at 11 UK showsites.

Monday, December 12, 2022

Win a copy of Rooms of Their Own with Malvern Garden Buildings

This competition to mark the many garden buildings featured in my book is taking place over at Malvern Garden Building's instagram page so head there for more details, but essentially they have a copy of Rooms of Their Own to give away to one lucky winner. The competition closes on 21st December. The winner will be announced on Malvern's stories and they’ll contact you directly from their account. 

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

 

Sunday, December 11, 2022

Glasshouse and greenhouse 2023 predictions

We've talked recently about keeping more of an eye out on greenhouse-based shedworking so we thought we'd ask Lancashire-based Hartley Botanic what it expects will be the biggest glasshouse and greenhouse trends for 2023:

 

1. A RETURN TO A TRADITIONAL AESTHETIC

Last year, they reported a trend in customers choosing to powder coat their greenhouses in modern shades of black and manganese graphite to make dramatic, contemporary statements - they were increasingly looking for minimalist structures. For 2023, Hartley Botanic is predicting that customers will be returning to more classic colours and designs when it comes to styles, with the majority of people choosing a traditional aesthetic. It is also predicting that customers will opt for more traditional, classic colours such as olive leaf and forest green, and white may be making a comeback.

 

2. DESIGNER GARDENS, DESIGNER GREENHOUSES

Over the last few years there has been a renewed focus and investment by homeowners in their outdoor spaces and this is now extending into greenhouse and glasshouse purchases. Increasingly, customers are choosing them as grand centrepieces to complete beautifully designed garden spaces and are also taking the customisation of their greenhouses to the next level, adding in unique features and customising them with highly personal touches. Tom Barry, CEO of Hartley Botanic, said: “There is an uplift in demand for increasingly grand and personal gardens spaces. Customers are getting even more creative about how they use and enjoy their greenhouses and they are being planned into large scale landscaping projects. The appetite to upgrade our gardens shows no sign of slowing down.”

 

3. GREENHOUSES FOR WELLBEING & RELAXATION

A theme Hartley Botanic referenced in its 2022 RHS tradestands as we reported earlier in the year, 2023 will be all about using them for wellbeing and relaxation. In 2023, Hartley Botanic expects to see more customers curating the interiors of their greenhouse spaces so they function as havens of calm and relaxation. This will include investing more time and energy into how they are organised and what accessories are selected, or left out. At Chelsea, Hampton Court and Tatton Park RHS shows, Hartley Botanic demonstrated this with structures which were paired back in terms of furniture and featured design elements carefully curated to exude order and tranquility, rather than clutter.


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Sunday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, contemporary living spaces offering premium quality, bespoke buildings without the hefty price tag

Friday, December 09, 2022

Wintry garden offices

SMART is among the various garden office companies getting into the festive spirit. Here's their showroom above, decorated and ready for Christmas. Visitors can enjoy a free hot drink while they look around (9am to 5pm during the week, 10am - 3pm on Saturday, but please book an appointment first). SMART is also running a Christmas competition for SMART garden room owners - the most impressively decorated wins a luxury hamper! For more details see their Facebook page or contact them via the link above.

Below is writer Nicole Kennedy's garden office.


And here is writer Lucy Strange's view from her writing shed.
 
 
Please do send us pictures of your frosty, wintry, and seasonal garden offices.

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

Thursday, December 08, 2022

Frosty shedworking

Garden office workers are waking up to probably the coldest morning of the year. Here's Richard Lee from shepherd's hut specialist Plankbridge's own home office. "Moon-lit frosty morning at my traditional shepherd’s hut at home here in #Dorset Stove is lit, this #workfromhome idea definitely has its appeal," he writes. And below is Moray Swan's garden office. "This is the way to work when you’re snowed in!" he writes. "Loving the new garden office. #TheCube."

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

Wednesday, December 07, 2022

Garden Office with store room




Here's the latest garden office build from Garden Spaces which comes with thermowood cladding and has a rather unusual shape so the dimensions are not for square build. It's a touch over 4m x 6.4m x 2.5m, with space for a store room as well as office space. Foundations are ground screw piles and the laminate flooring is smoked oak.

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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.