Friday Finery: self-built hempcrete architecture studio

This week's entry in the Friday Finery slot is this remarkable garden office build by Commonbond Architects to be used by their own staff. With an internal floor area of 28m², it consists of two interconnecting rooms with a long table for working, and a snug. There's also a lavatory and storage area.

What makes it particularly interesting is that it's made from hempcrete as a test for using this environmentally-friendly breathable building material which also has splendid insulation properties. Moreover, as regular readers know, the Shedworking staff really love an underground build and this one is sunk one metre into the ground in order to make the flowerbeds align with the desktop which makes for a fine view. 

It's been shortlisted for the Architects Journal Small Projects 2024 award so you can vote for it here.

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Malvern Garden Buildings' Houseplant Studios at 2024 Chelsea Flower Show

Another garden office supplier to look out for at this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show in late May is Malvern Garden Buildings who are bringing seven indoor gardens to the Houseplant Studios area in the Plateau area (pictured above is part of the company's stand at last year's event). Among the indoor plant stylists and botanical designers showing off their skills in MVG's various studios including their Victorian Greenhouse, Studio Pavilion, Studio Retreat, Astwood, and Studio Flat, will be 

* The Glasshouse: a social enterprise offering horticultural training to women based in UK prisons

*  Plants by There: a multisensory retro 1970s bedroom

* The Plant Parlour x GrowTropicals: exploring the potential of indoor spaces with biophilic design and naturalistic planting. 

* The Plant Warehouse: looking at turning homes of any size into indoor jungles with a focus on upcycling e.g. a living coffee table

* The Little Botanical: an immersive sanctuary showcasing sustainability through British grown and 100% peat free houseplants

* In the Garden: a maximalist layered indoor landscape in an eclectic city apartment, championing the importance of plant placement 

* Botanic York: an immersive, educational experience within a suburban home

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Blue Forest treehouse at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024

One of the trade stands at RHS Chelsea worth a look every year is Blue Forest's. Back again on the Main Avenue, the company will be presenting a two-storey garden treehouse (which they're calling an "entertainment tower"), co-created with landscape architecture experts Randle Siddeley Limited.

For 2024, they will be featuring in particular edible plants and fragrant botanicals which will complement the treehouse bar and entertainment deck which will offer smashing views over the show. There's also going to be a ground floor children's section with swinging seats.

“We are thrilled to unveil the Botanical Treehouse at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show,” said Andy Payne, Founder and MD of Blue Forest. “This project represents a true collaboration between nature and design, and we are delighted to once again be working with the prestigious Randle Siddeley to create something truly spectacular.”
 
This year, as ever, RHS is at Royal Hospital Chelsea in London May 21-25.

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Garden office photography studio

An interesting case study from Cosy Garden Rooms, the Roberts Twin Photography business based in Hastings, a five day build. Roberts Twins Photography is a professional photography business run by twin brothers Stuart and Lee which specialises in family, pet and wedding photography.

Stuart and Lee wanted a space from which they could grow their business. They were split between working from home, on location or hiring a studio by the hour, and wisely went down the garden office route (see images above). It measures 7m x 4m with durable Boothbay blue Hardie board cladding, a concrete foundation, floor to ceiling windows, central double sliding door, and overhang on two sides with remote sensor downlights.




"A garden room was a cheaper alternative than having an extension on the house," said Stuart. "I really wanted to grow our business and having a studio of our own, somewhere we could do our photography easily without all the massive outgoings of rent was the next key step for enabling that growth.
​
"By having our own studio we were able to grow our business and do all the things we wanted to do, i.e. newborn photography and dog photography, families, etc. I can practice new ideas, work on our editing in peace away from my busy household. Our newborn photography can sometimes see us with clients for four hours, this wasn’t cost effective when renting a studio by the hour. ​I can do whatever ideas I like now, whenever I like, no big overheads, no booking slots.

"I now have a place that is cool in the hot summer and nice and toastie in the winter. I can use my studio all year around. Plus, it’s not only a studio but also an escape, a study, a dining room at Christmas for the whole family, a party room for New Years Eve, a poker room for myself and my loud mates; the list goes on – it’s brilliant!"

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

Workers and bosses have different views on working from home productivity

A new survey from YouGov indicates that not everybody has the same beliefs about productivity when working from home. It shows that 60% of those who work from home are more productive there than in a 'traditional' office environment, with a quarter saying it makes no difference, and just 17% saying that they get more done when they go in to work in an office.

On the other hand, bosses are rather more split - a third agree that working from home is more productive, a similar figure believe the opposite. When it comes to themselves working from home, 44% say it's the better place to work...

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Friday Finery: treehouse garden office

This week, a delightful treehouse garden office from treehouse specialists Cheeky Monkey.

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Garden studios at at Malvern Spring Festival 2024

While Chelsea is the biggest beast of the garden show season, there are plenty more great shows elsewhere around the county which showcase interesting garden offices and garden buildings. Here are a couple from this year's Malvern Spring Festival (May 9 - 12) featuring models from Malvern Garden Buildings.

Pictured top is Concrete 2.0, a show garden from garden designer Ian McBain of Tythorne Garden Design which features the company's Flat Roof Studio. With eco-friendliness and reclaimed/recycled materials at its heart, the garden is designed for a young professional couple and who also want to work from home in a garden office. “The paving is purposely shaped to lead towards the studio, and the planting has been designed so that it will ‘ground’ the building and surround it with texture, colour and interest,” said Ian. “I really like the clean and contemporary feel of the garden studio. It is an attractive, practical and comfortable space, perfect for the Concrete 2.0 garden.”

Also worth looking out for is the Grand Appeal Garden (pictured above) from Bristol garden designers  Suzy Dean and Isabel Devaney of Ammil Garden Design Studio who will be making use of a bespoke Woodland Lodge for their family-friendly creation. According to Suzy: “The garden building helps to bring a family together surrounded by nature, whatever the season and whatever challenges they may be facing. It’s their safe haven. The barn style cladding and shingle roof really complement the rustic woodland styling of the garden. The inside is cosy, while the veranda allows you to be immersed in the garden whatever the weather.”

 

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Beautiful Proctor & Shaw garden studio

The Shedworking interns saw this property in Clapham, London, advertised on Wilfords and were naturally immediately taken with the view of the back garden. The garden office pictured actually mirrors the style of the oak bay window in this rear room, and is in a pleasant south-facing garden with fire pit and lawn. It's on at around the £2 million mark, but then you also get a five-bedroom house built around 1910 and sensitively redesigned by awardwinning architects Proctor & Shaw thrown in to sweeten the deal.

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

New 'Young Sheddie' category introduced for 2024 Shed of the Year

The 18th iteration of the world's leading shed competition Shed of the Year is now open for entries with a brand new category, Young Sheddie of the Year.

This means that those aged 18 - 25 can share the sheds they have bought to life, whether used for work, play, or a place to chill. Young Sheddie of the Year is also an opportunity to showcase creations brought to life by multiple generations in the family.

The new category is one of seven that entrants can pick to be in with the chance of winning an all-new prize. Alongside £1,000 in cash and £250 worth of Cuprinol products, this year’s winner will also be awarded an exclusive overnight stay in a relaxing nature resort. 

Head judge and founder of the competition Uncle Wilco said: “It will be very fascinating to see how the upcoming summer of sport events might inspire the entries in our pub and entertainment category. We’ve seen a growing number of participants using recycled materials and making more sustainable choices when it comes to creating their sheds – these are factors we’ll consider closely as we select finalists for the Nature’s Haven category this year.
 
“I’m also extremely excited to see the submissions in our new category. Last year, we crowned Archie Proudfoot our winner – he submitted his shed [pictured top] into the then-recently introduced Most Colourful Shed category. His fresh approach and vibrant use of colour made him a worthy winner.”

Cuprinol Creative Director, Marianne Shillingford added: “We’re equally excited to introduce the Cuprinol Young Sheddie of the Year category to the 2024 competition. It’s a fabulous way for the younger generation to express their unique personalities and unleash their creativity on a grand scale; this is our opportunity to meet the artists and architects of tomorrow!”
 
Categories for Cuprinol Shed of the Year 2024 include:
    1.    Young Sheddie of the Year
    2.    Most Colourful Shed
    3.    Simple but Effective
    4.    Budget
    5.    Unexpected/Unique
    6.    Cabin or Summerhouse
    7.    Nature’s Haven
    8.    Pub or Entertainment
    9.    Workshop or Studio

Entries for this year’s competition will close at midnight on May 31, 2024.

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Woodlands Home & Garden Group open a new distribution hub in Scotland

Specialist garden building manufacturer and retailer Woodlands Home & Garden Group has opened a new warehouse, distribution and sales hub in Scotland. The 40,000 sq.ft site is located in Glenrothes, Fife, and is part of Woodlands' development plans as it looks to expand its operation across the whole of Scotland.

The new hub will be managed by Chris Devanny who has extensive experience within the garden building market. In addition to overseeing the 22,000 sq.ft warehouse and distribution facility, he will also lead the development of sales, service, and installation operations across Scotland.

The Glenrothes site will also house a new Tiger garden building franchise, opening in partnership with Anchor Timber Buildings, which will house over 110 garden buildings in an 18,000 sq.ft indoor display area.  The showsite in Glenrothes has been operated by Anchor for over 40 years, and having established a successful reputation across the region, they took the decision to partner exclusively with Tiger earlier this year to help with their growth.

Ross Moran, Chief Executive at Woodlands Home & Garden Group said: “We are delighted to get this deal over the line and the opening of a new hub in Glenrothes provides us with the opportunity to further develop our sales growth and service across the whole of Scotland which we believe is a really important and exciting region for us. We have worked successfully with Anchor for many years, so the appointment of Chris as our General Manager not only ensures continuity for all our customers, but also provides the business with a highly experienced and ambitious individual.

“The new Tiger franchise is also another significant step forward for Tiger’s offline strategy, which is creating a network of franchise-operated locations across the UK to complement our existing online success and build on our position as the UK’s market leader in garden buildings."

The new showsite is located at Anchor Timber Buildings, Unit 8a Boston Road, Viewfield Industrial Estate, Glenrothes, Fife KY6 2RE and is open from 8am until 4.30pm on Monday to Friday and 9am until 3pm on Saturday. 

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The average UK worker will spend £1,964 a year by returning to work full-time, says new research

New figures from personal finance comparison site finder.com suggest that the average commuter in the UK could spend £1,964 a year on returning to the office, roughly 7% of the average salary.

Finder calculated the average cost of commuting to and from work and buying lunch, to find out how much a worker could expect to pay if they returned to the office five days a week. They found that the average worker would spend an additional £1,964 per year on commuting and lunch costs on returning to the office full-time.

In London, this figure rises to 9.4% of average take-home pay, with workers in the capital expected to spend £3,076, with £2,206 of this figure attributable to commuting costs.

Employees in Yorkshire and The Humber would lose an average of 6.7% of their annual take-home salary, followed by the West Midlands at 6.6% then the North West and East Midlands (6.5%), and the South West and North East (6.4%).

Those in the South East and Wales would sacrifice an average of 6.3% of their salary by returning to the office full-time. In the East of England workers could expect to lose around 6.2% of their take home salary, and in Scotland, 6%.

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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

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Multi-purpose garden office

 

 

A recent build from Cosy Garden Rooms underlines the flexibility of garden buildings. Pictured above is the 5m × 3.5m design, composite clad in soft green Hardie board with UPVC anthracite doors and windows, a front overhang with remote sensor LED lighting, double sliding doors, and a bathroom partition.

 

Here's what the customer said about it: "We love it. It is used as occasional guest accommodation but the bed is swapped out with a settee, etc, when not being used. Then it becomes an extra living space. And I have also used it as an office so it’s definitely multi purpose."

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13th and final London Cabmen's Shelter awarded Grade II listing

Excellent news this morning that the green cabmen's shelter on Wellington Place in St John’s Wood, London has now been listed at Grade II level by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Known locally as 'The Chapel' shelter it is the final example in the capital to be protected by listing.
 
As regular readers of Shedworking know, these wooden huts were built by the Cabmen's Shelter Fund as rest stops for licenced cab drivers when cabs were all horse-drawn. The first was built in 1875 and only 13 survive in the city today, continuing to serve modern-day taxi drivers. All 13 shelters were restored in a campaign by Heritage of London Trust during the 1980s and 1990s and they are still overseen by the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund, which celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2025.

Only drivers with 'The Knowledge' can take a seat inside but many huts offer takeaway refreshments to the public too.

"We’re really pleased that the Wellington Place shelter now has protected status, along with all the other remaining shelters," said Colin Evans, Trustee Cabmen's Shelter Fund. "We know how special the shelters are but we need the London taxi trade and public’s support more than ever so that this important part of our heritage and working class history lives on."

Image courtesy Historic England Archive 

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

 

Garden studio built with biowaste

An interesting case study in the Guardian featuring plant stylist Emma Sadie Thomson who built her home studio in Melbourne, Australia, out of recycled materials and biowaste. Here's a snippet:

Inside, Thomson’s main concern was how to insulate. From a friend who was working for Joost Bakker’s Future Food System project in Melbourne, Thomson learned about Durra Panel, a wheat straw insulation, originally designed in Sweden and made in Bendigo, and decided to use it for the inside walls and ceiling.

Well worth a read.

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Monday posts are sponsored by Cosy Garden Rooms, the UK's No. 1 bespoke garden room designer and builder.

Can I reclaim the VAT on the cost of my garden office?

No apologies for returning to the perennial question (s) of garden offices and tax, with Saint & Co Chartered Accountants the latest experts to pitch in with their thoughts on VAT, capital gains, capital allowances, and depreciation. Here's a snippet (click the link above to read the whole thing which is short and to the point):

Can I reclaim the VAT on the cost of my garden office?
If you are VAT registered and build it through your business then absolutely YES. Some key pointers below:
*Ensure the business pays for all costs, you cannot claim the vat back if you pay personally
*If you are planning to use the garden office for personal use as well you are only able to claim back a portion of the VAT
*Clients under the flat rate VAT scheme can only reclaim capital purchases no less than £2,000. VAT cannot be reclaimed for services. Ensure materials are bought separately to any installation costs

As always, we recommend you talk to your tax advisor before taking any financial decisions.

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

Steel garden office

As we often remind potential shedworkers looking around for a garden office, while wood is by some distance the most popular build material, other build materials are available. Among them are the steel offerings from Portable Space who have recently launched a new model, the Como. It's fully insulated with double-glazed opening windows and doors made from high-quality galvanised stee.

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 studios to fit any size garden. Top quality contemporary or traditional

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Garden prosecco bar

Garden offices are obviously excellent places to work, but all work and no play... Here's an example of an Arctic Cabins BBQ Hut put to less studious but more jolly use. The company says they've noticed increasing numbers of customers mentioning that they have plans to use their build as a gin/cocktail/prosecco santuary.

Among them is Laura from Retford in Nottinghamshire, mum of two primary school aged children, and who enjoys girls' nights out, who decided to recreate the bar experience of her pre-parenting days in her back garden. "I wanted a garden building," she said, "a log cabin, but a lot of the ones that I’ve looked at were just sheds. I didn’t want the girls feeling like we’d just put some chairs out in a shed. It feels like a safe place – I think this will be a sanctuary for us school mums!”

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Building a replica of Roald Dahl's writing shed

A fabulously-realised project by office design and build specialists K2 Space saw them build a replica of Roald Dahl's famous writing hut for the London office of the Roald Dahl Family Company which looks after the writer's literary and creative legacy. It comes complete with a thatched roof and vintage typewriter, and is used as a meeting space within the larger office area. Do enjoy the short video below which shows how it was all done:

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

Ruth Janette Ruck's writing hut

I have been reading Ruth Janette Ruck's first rural memoir Place of Stones for a book I'm writing which comes out next year about Wales. Not only is it really interesting, flicking through one of the follow-ups to it, Along Came a Llama, I was intrigued to discover that this later book was largely written in what Ruck calls her 'Writing Hut' close to her home. Here's her description of it:

The hut had once been a henhouse but, with the perches and nest boxes removed and the wall lined with hardboard and the floor with linoleum, it made a good and peaceful retreat for me. It was screened from the cottage by a dry-stone wall and overhung by a huge ash tree. Round about, clumps of bracken were beginning to unfurl and foxgloves were pushing up their flower spikes.

She goes on to describe that this secluded spot gave her a particularly fine view when she left the door open, particularly of birds in the branches of the ash, one that reminded her of an oil painting.

Garden office crime never pays

A man has been sentenced to four months in prison after being caught by an off duty police officer in Winchester, according to Hampshire Police.

Paul David Wild, 41, of Hyde Gate, Winchester pleaded guilty to burglary other than dwelling and possession of a controlled Class B drug at Basingstoke Magistrates Court on March 18.

The officer had just finished a night shift and was making his way home when he saw two men running across the road in Hyde Street. Pulling over in his vehicle, he got out to see if anyone needed help, to be told that one of the men had just found the other stealing items from his garden office.

He presented himself as an off duty police officer and detained him before carrying out a search and finding a number of items which belonged to the victim, including a laptop, Bluetooth speakers and three skateboards. All the stolen property was returned to the victim.

Police Staff Investigator Michael Longmore, said: “Thanks to the victim and this officer, Wild was caught and put before the court in just over 24 hours after the burglary took place. Burglary is an invasive crime and can leave victims feeling insecure and vulnerable in their own homes. I hope the speed at which this has been resolved has brought some comfort to the victim."

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

 

 

Printing studio log cabin

As our staff are also (very) amateur letterpress printers, we were delighted to come across this build by Garden Affairs for far more professional letterpress outfit Ptolmaic Press run by Phil McMullen from his Wiltshire base. It's a 5.5m x 3m log cabin, with windows and doors factory painted in Reseda Green but the building itself supplied unpainted as Phil wanted to do that paint job himself. Inside, there's space for a drying rack and the floor has been reinforced to hold the weight of his 1926 'Arab' Foolscap Folio press, made by Wades of Halifax.

Pictured below are his printing presses (the Shedworking staff were particularly delighted to see the Adana 8 x 5 at work as we also have one of those in the basement office) and workspace.

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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.