Monty Don's 2025 Chelsea Flower Show garden

The announcement that Monty Don - whose writing shed has featured on these pages several times -  will be putting together a garden design for the first time for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show next year has not unreasonably focused mostly on the fact that it will be dog-friendly.

But what caught the eye of the Shedworking staff was that the design, inspired by Don's own Longmeadow which regularly features on BBC's Gardener's World television series and pictured above, will also include a summerhouse, or as the RHS put it: "The lawn drifts into longer grass planted with ornamental spring flowering bulbs to create a tameflower, rather than wildflower meadow. Brick paths run straight creating vistas – a touch of Monty Don’s own Longmeadow garden – with one providing the route through the garden for visitors and another leading to the summerhouse." We will watch the design develop with interest and report back here. 

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

Billy-Oh flash sale

This Billy-Oh sale ends tomorrow (Tuesday) at midnight so if you're interested you'll have to get your skates on. A few deals that caught our eye were the its Kent garden office (normally £3,339, now at £2,068), a Studi insulated garden room (£8,739 rather than £13,495), and the Tianna log cabin summerhouse with side store (£1,208 instead of £2,095).

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

 

 

Friday Finery: Okopod Classic

The Shedworking staff have been mumbling appreciative things about the Classic model from Okopod all week, especially this shot which shows the clean, simple lines, which come with a flat oof and a really decent picture window. 

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

Drying shed sauna shortlisted for Wood Awards

The splendid annual Wood Awards which recognise, encourage and promote outstanding wood design, craftsmanship and installation have returned with another marvellous shortlist of projects. Among them is this smashing Drying Shed Sauna in a woodland clearing in the High Weald Area of Natural Beauty designed for an architect and according to the architects Built Works is inspired by agricultural drying sheds and the rituals of Scandinavian sauna culture.

It's actually for the use of guests staying in eco-cabins not far away and is clad in UK-grown, red-stained larch shingles and lined inside with alder (it is surrounded by alders). Wood for fuel is sourced from the neighbouring woodland, and the bench seating was sourced from a nearby fallen silver birch. The whole thing is built on salvaged stone and uses root-sensitive screw piles.

Many more extremely atmospheric photos at Built Works.

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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.

Used annexe for sale saving more than £30k

Booths Garden Studios does occasionally have used garden buildings for sale and here's its latest, a five-year-old garden annexe currently in North Lincolnshire which is a touch under £80,000 new but available if you're in the market for one at £48,990, a saving of just over £31,000. It meassures 36ft x 8ft and comes with a bathroom, kitchen, and two additional rooms, as well as a frontage with a lot of windows. Price includes installation, groundworks up to 20 metres, mains connection, internet connection, heating/cooling air conditioning, and final interior painting. More details here.

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Wednesday posts are sponsored by Booths Garden Studios, the UK's No.1 supplier of zero maintenance and portable garden studios

 

Green roofs for garden rooms

A guest post from Cosy Garden Rooms on one of the most popular features of garden offices and garden rooms. 

A green roof is a living roof, that is partially or completely covered with plants and vegetation. There are many different types of plant that can be used including meadow flowers, sedum, moss and herbs. Turf roofs are also an option but are not often used because they are heavy and need a lot of maintenance otherwise they become messy. 

All green roofs are made up of multiple layers, including a waterproofing membrane, growing medium, and plants. At Cosy Garden Rooms, we use sedum roofs in our garden room designs. A green roof is a generic term for any living roof, while a sedum roof specifically features low-growing succulents, a type of plant species. We use sedum-based living roofs because they are low-maintenance, durable, and can provide year-round visual interest.

Benefits of green and sedum roofs include

• Thermal and acoustic insulation
• Supports a wonderful ecosystem for birds and insects
• Offers a softer, more natural look compared to traditional roofing materials, especially when viewed from higher levels 
• Green roofs, including sedum roofs, act as natural sponges by absorbing and retaining rainwater, reducing runoff, preventing flooding, filtering pollutants, and easing the strain on drainage systems around garden rooms

When installing a green or sedum roof, one of the most important considerations is the structural strength of the garden room. Green roofs are heavier than standard roofing materials, especially when wet, as they hold both plants and substrate. 

While green roofs in general may require some maintenance, sedum roofs are particularly low-maintenance, making them a popular choice. Sedum plants are drought-tolerant, needing little to no watering once established, and they don’t require frequent feeding. A light application of fertilizer once a year is typically sufficient to keep the plants healthy. Additionally, sedum roofs don’t need mowing, making them an easy-care option for homeowners. Occasional weeding or trimming might be necessary, but overall, they are a practical, fuss-free choice for anyone looking to incorporate a living roof into their garden room.

A green roof is an additional cost. Your garden room will function perfectly well without one. However, people like them, and they are becoming popular. As a basic guide price, they cost £50 per square meter plus trims and fitting if the roof is strong enough for the additional weight.

Pictured below is a green roof delivery.

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

Luxury oak garage with room above living space (video)

There are some lovely views from oak frame outbuildings specialist The Classic Barn Company's recent build near East Preston in the south of England. It's a two-bay oak framed garage building with balcony and finished room above to be used as a self-contained guest annexe, as well as to rent as a weekend retreat. It also has garden office potential. Lovely short video below.

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

Friday Finery: Magical Hideaway

We've hopped into our time machine for this week's Finery. Pictured above is the ground-based section of leading treehouse specialist Blue Forest's display at the Chelsea Flower Show last year, what it describes as a "cosy hillside hollow".

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

 

Video footage of George Bernard Shaw in his writing hut aged 90

Here's a genuine slice of sheworking history, a long video clip of George Bernard Shaw at work in his writing hut from British Pathé which describes it as "excellent candid footage". It was shot on his 90th birthday at his home in Ayot St Lawrence just up the road from Shedworking HQ. Shaw comes out of his house, wanders down to his garden office, opens it, sits down and starts to use his typewriter.

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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.

L-shaped garden office

An interesting L-ish-shaped design from Swift Garden Rooms. The 7m x 7m build is a multi-use space as well as a garden office for shedworking, built in a kind of semi-hexagonal shape. Features include oversized aluminium sliding doors, thre 1m top-hung windows and a 1.2m fixed-pane picture window facing the garden, and a 2.1m x 1.9m hidden garden storage room with concealed seperate door. 

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Wednesday posts are sponsored by Booths Garden Studios, the UK's No.1 supplier of zero maintenance and portable garden studios

 

 

 

Garden office as church welfare facility

This is a new use for a garden office to the Shedworking team but a very worthy one indeed. The church of St Peter and St Paul in Hoxne, Suffolk, used a Suffolk Barn model (in a natural sage finish) from SMART to replace an old rectory building to provide an essential welfare facility for the community and space to host events and services. 

Here's what the church said about the decision:     

“The addition of the new welfare facility had a profound impact on the church and the wider community. With this new space, the church could now host a broader range of activities beyond just daily and Sunday services. The facility enabled the church to hold weddings, ceremonies, concerts, events, and galas, thereby enhancing its role as a community hub. The new welfare facility significantly improved the church’s capacity to serve its congregation and community, fostering greater engagement and participation in church-related activities.”

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

Arctic Cabins scoops People's Choice Award

Large congratulations to Arctic Cabins which has won The People's Choice Award at the Midlands Family Business Awards and Highly Commended in Property & Construction Excellence. Pictured above are Kay Pollard, Victoria Parkinson, and Melissa Quinney from the Arctic team with their award.

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

Friday Finery: garden office sedum roof

This week's Finery is a beautiful sedum roof on a garden office in Kew built by longstanding friends of Shedworking garden2office.

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

Garden office sales and marketing suite

The beauty of garden offices is that they lend themselves to flexible, bespoke design to fit a genuinely wide variety of needs. Here's an example from SMART Modular Buildings for housebuilders Denbury Homes who were on the search for a sales and marketing suite with an executive feel for its St Edmunds Gate development.

SMART tailormade something from its Key Studio range, a 7m x 3.5m building with luxurious internal branding in cream, gold, and burgundy, and finished off with traditional wood and dark finishings. Features include double French doors, an internal partition, and frosted glass windows, plus dedicated areas for displaying information and holding client consultations. 

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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.

 

Potential garden office police box to auction

A police box on Pleasance, Edinburgh, described by the sellers as having distinct garden office potential comes up for sale in a live-streamed commercial property auction later this month.

The box- which has a guide price of £5,000 -  is currently located  off the busy crossroads between Cowgate, Pleasance, Holyrood Road and St Mary’s Street within the popular Old Town district of Edinburgh.

Hannah Barnett, commercial surveyor at Shepherd Chartered Surveyors, said: “The police box presents a unique opportunity to acquire a sought-after piece of street furniture in an ever-popular location in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town. Originally designed and constructed in the 1930s, this iconic feature of Edinburgh’s history could be re-purposed and relocated to another location to provide for example, a garden office, bar or a coffee kiosk, food stall or something else entirely.”

The box is offered for sale as a moveable item with no interest in the land upon which it presently sits. Any purchaser wishing to keep the box in its current location should liaise with City of Edinburgh Council regarding the possibility of entering a ground lease. There are currently no supplies of services to the box.

The auction will be held on October 17 at 2:30pm. For more details go to www.shepherd.co.uk/commercial-auctions

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Wednesday posts are sponsored by Booths Garden Studios, the UK's No.1 supplier of zero maintenance and portable garden studios

 

Shedworker Mark Brend releases new album

Devon-based musician, writer, and shedworker (and friend of Shedworking) Mark Brend has released a new album of experimental renditions of evangelical hymns, Tremulant, which was largely recorded in his shed studio/office/writing room. 

"Tremulant was created over several years by singers Suzy Mangion, Andrew Rumsey and Michael Weston King, and me," Mark told Shedworking, "borne out of a shared love of antique evangelical hymns and spiritual songs. Using English, Welsh, Scottish and American source material from the 19th and early 20th centuries, we pieced together our reconstructed hymnal through remote collaboration, with the singers sending me unaccompanied renditions of songs as the starting point for each track."

 

Enjoy the sample below and for more information go to the album's bandcamp page.

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

Last chance to vote for UK Men's Shed Awards 2024

Postponed from June because of all the political shenanigans, the annual UK Men's Shed Awards 2024 (sponsored by TiteFix) will now take place on November 19 (International Men's Day), but you still have time to take part as there's been an extension on the timings.

This means that nominations for Shed of the Year are reopened until midnight of October 1. More details about it here.

The five categories for 2024 are:

• Shed Community Project of the Year

• Shed Volunteer of the Year


• Shed Health and Wellbeing Impact of the Year


• Shed Partnership of the Year


• Shed of the Year

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

Friday Finery: The Workroom

One of the most relaxing garden office photos the Shedworking staff have ever seen, this is The Workroom model from Bristol-based Little Garden Rooms whose entire website is similarly comfortable.

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

Garden office music room

Music rooms seem to be growing in popularity as garden office buildings. Here's an impressive recent build from Garden Spaces measuring 4m x 3.5m with an internal height of 2.1m. Since it is to be used by a keen drummer, acoustic performance was key to prevent annoying neighbours. So to maximise the acoustic performance, they included a special external porch entry system incorporating an internal acoustic door to give best performance. The build also has surface mounted sockets and switches to maximise the acoustic performance, and strip lights to maximise acoustic performance.

Other features include:

• Platinum Acoustic enhancement package for all walls, floor and ceiling
• Internal acoustic door
• Acoustic vent
• External uPVC 900mm wide single door with acoustic glazing
• 1250mm long screw pile foundation with adjuster plates due to tree roots in the vicinity and which future proofs the project from potential soil movement
• Thermowood external cladding to two sides
• 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.

 
 
 

 

Banjo Beale's boffice (bothy office)

The Shedworking staff are huge fans of Banjo Beale's BBC television series Designing the Hebrides which is back for a second marvellous series at the moment. And we were particularly delighted to discover in the latest episode (ice cream caravan and honesty boxes) to discover he is a shedworker too. Actually he's a bothyworker although he decribes his garden office - pictured above - as a 'boffice', a new term for us, portmanteauing bothy + office where he does all his "scheming and dreaming".

Banjo has already worked on a bothy in the first series as you can see below.

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Wednesday posts are sponsored by Booths Garden Studios, the UK's No.1 supplier of zero maintenance and portable garden studios

 

Garden office art studio

A nice build from Smart Modular Buildings using its Evolve 8.0m x 3.7m model for Gina Long MBE, a former charity sector leader and keen artist. Fed up of painting in a cramped greenhouse turned into a studio lacking natural light, she chose something more suitable and bespoke which has floor-to-ceiling windows and a far better layout to fit in her worktable, paint storage, easels, canvases, and tripods for photography. Here's what she says about it:

“Having recently retired from a highly demanding role in the charity sector, I was in desperate need of a space where I could unwind and reconnect with my passion for art. This new studio has been life-changing. It has become a place where I can fully immerse myself in my art, free from distractions. The peace and solitude it offers have brought immense joy and fulfillment into my life. I finally have a space that is truly mine, where I can nurture my creativity and find peace.”

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