Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Felixstowe Ferry sheds

We are big fans of the work of Suffolk-based Clare Curtis and her art hangs on the walls of Shedworking HQ. Here is her latest print which has a strong shedworking theme as she explains:

The hamlet of Felixstowe Ferry is a little cluster of shacks and fishing boats at the mouth of the River Deben which I've know all my life. The boat yard with its fishing huts and associated paraphernalia appeals to me in a similar way as an allotment does and ever since leaving art college I've sketched and found inspiration there. For a long time 'The Ferry' as us locals call it, had a feeling of a past era, a working community of fishermen and boat builders with the occasional bohemian and boat dweller and it never seemed to change. However over the past 10 years there has been a notable change. Shacks pulled down replaced by oversized homes for retirement or holidaying. So last year I decided to spend more time there in a conscious effort to draw more of the place before it altered forever. These two new prints, along with two lithographs I made some years ago, add to my body of work recording 'The Ferry'.

More details and how to buy at the link above. Below, Clare working on the prints.

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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, May 30, 2022

MOKU garden offices

MOKU is an interesting new garden office supplier just about to launch which is very much targeting those who are enjoying the new hybrid working conditions. They are very much walking the walk - so design happens in London, manufacture in Essex, but there is no fixed office address since all meetings take place online. Here's what they say:

We believe the surest way for a leader to recognise the full potential within their team,  while also deriving the greatest value from the workforce, is to create an environment that provides the opportunity and motivation for talent to flourish. Resilient organisations must allow for complete personal adaptability which is often underestimated in a traditional workplace.

There will be lease options as well as the straightforward purchase ones, with a whole range of modular elements to choose from. Worth signing up for more information on the site via the link above if you are thinking of buying.

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

Saturday, May 28, 2022

Boulton and Paul shepherd's hut: Where are the Fellow who Cut the Hay?

This is a shepherd's hut-based guest post by Robert Ashton whose book Where are the Fellows who Cut the Hay? currently being crowdfunded by our friends at Unbound.

When I hear someone say ‘shepherds’ hut’ today, my mind takes me straight to David Cameron’s back garden and the rather pretentious construction he installed as a writing studio. According to the Guardian, this cost him £25,000, contains a wood-burning stove, Bakelite light switch and sheep’s-wool insulation. Apparently it also has a pull out sofa bed and is tastefully decorated with Farrow and Ball paint. 

Blaxhall shepherd Robert Savage (born 1880) would not have regarded Cameron’s cosy lair as a shepherd’s hut. In retirement he lived next door to oral historian and author George Ewart Evans, and so not surprisingly featured prominently in Evans’s book Ask the Fellows who Cut the Hay which was first published in 1956. During the Spring lambing season, when he had to on hand to help should an ewe get into difficulties, he would live for days on end in a draughty wooden shepherd’s hut. 

Robert Savage’s shepherd’s hut was probably made by Boulton and Paul, a Norwich firm who also prefabricated mission churches and later, built Sopwith Camel aircraft during the First World War. In 1910 ta shepherd’s hut cost 16 pounds and 10 shillings, which was not far short of a year’s wages for a Suffolk shepherd. But while sleeping out in a shepherd’s hut was not very comfortable, Robert Savage happily endured in year after year because he was paid a bonus of sixpence for every lamb born that he could keep alive. As Evans wrote; ‘lambing was the shepherd’s harvest,’ and the extra money an important addition to the household budget. 

Having worked on a farm in Blaxhall myself, and come to know the sons of many who featured in Evans’s books, it was inevitable that one day I would write my own, bringing the stories Evans collected up to date. My book, Where are the Fellows who Cut the Hay? reveals how David Cameron’s shepherd’s hut is far from the only rural tradition that is enjoying something of a renaissance.

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Welcome to your new teak garden room from Moonalabs. Unparalleled quality at an affordable price.

Friday, May 27, 2022

Dylan Thomas's writing shed in Rooms of Their Own

The inside and outside of the famous writing shed belonging to Dylan Thomas as illustrated wonderfully by James Oses in my new book Rooms of Their Own

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

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Garden office with simple domestic sewage pumping station

Increasingly, people want garden offices to include elements such as toilets or kitchenettes. Here's a good example of a build in the Midlands by Sheffield-based Dore Garden Offices which serves as a garden office, entertainment space and additional guest bedroom - it also has kitchen and bathroom facilities.

They brought in experts Pump Technology to help, since the build was 2m below and 20m away from the nearest sewage connection. The answer was a domestic sewage pumping station, specifically the MiniMatic which is now located next to the garden room - gravity takes all waste water into the buried pumping chamber and at a pre-set level it automatically pumps the contents up to the main sewer.

You can see the range of similar products offered by Pump Technology at their site here.

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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, May 25, 2022

Garden offices: an estate agent's view

An interesting guest post at Into The Garden Room (pictured above) by estate agent Grant Letts, partner at Curchods, offers an expert perspective on the value added to a property by a garden office. Here's a snippet: 

"As home working becomes more established, people are looking to create a better physical and mental separation between their work and home life – making a working space outside of the home appealing. Once people know what their working life will look like on a more permanent basis, we expect to see even more willingness to invest in a quality garden room and pay more for a property featuring one."

The whole thing is well worth a read - click link above - but his main points are:

* he's noticed a definite growth in interest among buyers in recent years in properties with a garden office

* a property with a garden office can sell for considerably more than similar ones in similar locations

* he estimates the added value to be around 1.25 times the cost of the garden room build.

* he says high-end garden room are far better at adding value than conservatories

* the quality and installation of a garden office are key factors in terms of its investment potential 

* garden offices that are too big can put some buyers off 

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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, May 24, 2022

More than four in five people want to continue flexible working

A new report from the Office of National Statistics suggests that most people who took up homeworking because of the coronavirus pandemic plan to work from home and in the workplace in a hybrid format in the future. People were asked about their future plans after government guidance to work from home when possible was lifted in England and Scotland - more than 8 in 10 who had to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic said they planned to hybrid work.

Data from its latest Opinions and Lifestyle Survey shows that the proportion of people hybrid working has risen from 13% in early February 2022 to 24% in May 2022. Meanwhile, the proportion who planned to return to their place of work permanently fell from 11% in April 2021 to 8% in February 2022.

More than a third of people earning £40,000 or more hybrid worked between 27 April and 8 May 2022 - those in this income group were the only ones for whom hybrid working was the most common working pattern. They were also more likely than other income groups to work from home exclusively.

Additionally, people aged 30 to 49 were the most likely to report hybrid working between 27 April and 8 May 2022, with 29% reporting doing so.

Overall, more than three-quarters of those who worked from home in some way said that being able to do so gave them an improved work life balance. Half reported it was quicker to complete work and that they had fewer distractions. Almost half also reported improved well-being. And looking at it from the other point of view, the proportion of businesses reporting using or intending to include homeworking as a permanent business model has increased slightly from 16% in autumn 2020 to 23% in early April 2022 - the most common reason for doing so was improved staff well-being (60%), followed by reduced overheads (43%) and increased productivity (41%).

Image courtesy Moonalabs

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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, May 23, 2022

Blue Forest and Plankbridge at RHS Chelsea Flower Show this week


Two of the finest shedworkingesque structures at this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show - both familiar names to regular readers of Shedworking - are not in the main show gardens but in the exhibitor area. Above is Blue Forest's bespoke treehouse on Main Avenue, the first accommodation treehouse it has exhibited at the show (afterwards it's going straight to the grounds of Fairmont Windsor Park, where it will form part of their luxurious accommodation offering). Features include an outdoor bath and a rather nice swing seat hanging below the deck.

Plankbridge's shepherd's hut - we'll be bringing more images later this week as it's one of the exhibitors which always attracts a lot of attention - is also looking extremely good.

We particularly like the detailing which includes a mouse run into a hollow log, and this mossy bird's nest in an old kettle in a rewilding patch, below.

 

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

  

  

Saturday, May 21, 2022

Godalming garden office

A brief pictorial essay this lovely Saturday, a newly-finished Archipod garden office build in Godalming, Surrey, with desk and underfloor heating.


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Welcome to your new teak garden room from Moonalabs. Unparalleled quality at an affordable price.

Friday, May 20, 2022

Meg Mason: shedworker

Australian novelist Meg Mason, author most recently of the acclaimed Sorrow and Bliss which is shortlisted for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction, is also a shedworker, as she revealed in a recent Guardian interview ("I have had a copy of Fox 8 by George Saunders within reaching distance in my writing shed since I first read it, in 2013"). There's also an excellently detailed interview with her in Toast in which she discusses her daily shed-based writing routine, roughly 8.30am- 5pm-ish. Here's a snippet:

It’s a real shed. We built it when we bought the house and it's a little weatherboard thing, painted a smoky grey colour. I tell people it’s small, and they’re like, ‘oh right okay.’ And then they come and see it and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I say to my husband that you would not want to go in there with anyone you were not in love with. It’s maybe six feet by four so perfect for one lady.

But I’m really grateful to have somewhere to go that’s separate from the house.

Well worth a read.

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

Thursday, May 19, 2022

Garden office ground screw foundations




Ground screw foundations seem to be increasingly popular for garden office use. Here's a fine example from experts No More Digging for a Scottish Garden Rooms build. Pictured above is the installation of 39 RADIX PRO ground screws to pave the way for solid and level bases for a 3.2m x 2.6m garden office with 4.8m decking and a separate 6.4m x 4m garden gym.

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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, May 18, 2022

SMART Garden Building Competition returns

One of the more niche - but none the worse for that - shedlike competitions is back, the SMART Garden Building Competition. It's open to anybody who had a SMART garden room installed in 2021 (the 2020 competition was won by Paul and Katharine Stone's build, pictured above). Here's what SMART say:

We are always thrilled to see how our installations are customised to suit our customer’s needs, and how each building is uniquely designed to reflect their requirements. No two garden buildings are the same, and we would love to see how our 2021 SMART Spaces have been transformed!

Full details at the link above, but essentially you need to email them at contactus@smartgardenoffices.co.uk attaching portrait and landscape photos of the interior and exterior of your garden room, and in a sentence explain what you use it for and why you like it.There's £100 for the overall winner, plus £50 for each of the category winners (garden office, gym, art/craft/hobby, business, leisure, unique). 

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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, May 17, 2022

Man Shed at the Edinburgh Fringe 2022

The number of plays with sheds as their focus continues to grow with the happy news that the bitter-sweet one-man work Man Shed from Right Lines Productions by Euan Martin starring Ron Emslie will be on at the Pleasance during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August. Here's the spiel:

Can a man find his purpose when he grows older and all the major life events come thick and fast? Should he retire to the solitude of The Shed and escape from the world, or get out and try something new? When familiar rules no longer apply, is it too late to change the habits of a lifetime?

Inspired by the work of the Scottish Men's Sheds Association, Man Shed is a one-man theatre piece by Right Lines Productions which explores the joy of sheds, the pain of loss and the comfort of friendship.

The hour-long play has been inspired in general by the international Men’s Sheds network, but in particular the Scottish Men’s Sheds Association. It was due to appear two years ago but pandemic.

Man Shed previews on August 3 and 4, then continues until August 29 apart from August 10, 15, and 22. Tickets available from www.pleasance.co.uk/event/man-shed/performances

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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, May 16, 2022

Watch me work in Nigel Nicolson's gazebo


Sissinghurst's best known writing space is Vita Sackville-West's writing tower but it is also home to her son Nigel's splendid writing gazebo (pictured above on a recent visit), next to the moat and  which has quite lovely views over the surrounding Kent countryside. He built it in 1969 as a memorial to his father, Harold, to the same spec as the Apollo 11 lunar module, and wrote his famous Portrait of a Marriage there. "This is my summer office," he wrote of it at the start of his book Long Life, "but an office without telephone, light or heat, so I cannot use it in the winter." 

It's still without all those things - though there is plenty of light thanks to the large windows - and to celebrate it and him, Sissinghurst is running an 'off the grid' workspace project for writers, artists, and creatives this summer, giving them the chance to work from the gazebo all day, from before visitors arrive to when everybody goes home. And I'm delighted that they have asked me since it coincides with the publication of my new book Rooms of Their Own. So this means that on June 18 I'll be working all day inside Nigel Nicolson's marvellous gazebo in the garden's grounds. Although I'll be working, I'll also be very happy to be distracted so do come and have a chat! And I'll probably be signing copies of my book in the shop at some point.

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

 



 

 

Saturday, May 14, 2022

Garden office with wrap decking

 
A rather nice garden room in Dorset by Dorset-based designers and craftspeople James Gray, a bespoke 4m x 5m build with wrap decking, underfloor heating, and birch ply custom shelving, all clad in the exterior treatment of the moment, Wabi Shou Ban.
 

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Welcome to your new teak garden room from Moonalabs. Unparalleled quality at an affordable price.

Friday, May 13, 2022

Hairdressing and beauty therapy garden office

Hairdresser Diane Cox who runs Femininity Hair & Beauty in Reading took the leap to shedworking after the 15 year lease on her salon was due for renewal and opted instead for a Norwegian Log cabin in her back garden. It's a good size (it has to be to fit in cutting chairs, mirrored workstations, washing basins, lavatory, storage, and waiting area), coming in at 30m2. Features include plenty of windows to bring light into the space, and a bi-fold door. Inside, the walls have been treated with a pale tinted natural oil. Not only is it the perfect size, it's also much quieter than the business's previous location on a main road in the city.

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


Thursday, May 12, 2022

SMART's Platinum Jubilee promotion

To celebrate the Queen's platinum jubilee this year, SMART has lots of goodies available for those taking the plunge and ordering a garden office, studio or room from them over the next few months. There are seven specific offers per order for those taking up a free consultation by July 17 and ordering by August 27:

* £500 off an order

* Gas BBQ: deluxe 4+1 gas burner grill barbecue

* Short UK break for two: two-night premium/luxury escape through Red Letter Days or Virgin Experience Days

* £500 B&Q voucher

* Half price climate control

* Jordan Lifting Club Flat HIIT Bench with a set of 5 hexagonal dumbbells (2 x 2kg, 2 x 4kg, 2 x 6kg, 2 x 8kg, 2 x 10kg) 

* Half price blinds

More details at their site here where you can also find all terms and conditions.

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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.