Tiger launches two new show sites in Gloucestershire

Woodlands Home & Garden Group has launched two new show sites in Gloucestershire for its specialist garden building retailer brand, Tiger, in Gloucester and Whitminster.

Operated in partnership with Thermal Rooms Limited, the new Whitminster location is the third retail outlet opened by Tiger this year, taking the total nationwide to 12.

The newly-built display site in Gloucester will have more than 40 garden buildings on show, making it one of the largest garden showsites in the region. These buildings represent the full range of the Tiger collection, from the compact Tiger Tool Tower to the new Obsidian 70mm Insulated Log Cabin and a Tiger Modular custom-built insulated corner garden room.

The Gloucester site also features an extensive selection of the most popular Tiger buildings, including the Tiger Contemporary Retreat Summerhouse, modular TigerFlex® Shiplap Apex Shed, and Aura 44mm Log Cabin, available with quick Pick A Day delivery.

The Whitminster site is at Highfields Garden World, with two dozen buildings on show including a purpose-built insulated garden room from the Tiger Modular collection, and the Galena, a 70mm Insulated Log Cabin from the new Black Tiger range. The Whitminster site also features an extensive selection of the most popular Tiger buildings, including the Tiger Vista Corner Summerhouse, bestselling Tiger Shiplap Pent Shed, and Procas 44mm Log Cabin.

This latest Tiger show site and comes a few months after Tiger’s deal with British Garden Centres to place show sites in more than 30 garden centres across the UK. 

“The Whitminster show site is the perfect location for our new store," said Sam Jenkinson, Head of Marketing at Tiger, "based in the popular, thriving garden centre at Highfield Garden World. With two sites now in the Gloucester area, the Tiger brand has a great profile in the region, which will only get stronger as word of mouth spreads.” 

The Gloucester show site is at Gloucester Garden Centre, Bath Rd, Gloucester GL10 3DP and the Whitminster show site is at Highfield Garden World, Bristol Rd, Whitminster GL2 7PB.
Both are open 10.30am - 5.30pm Monday to Saturday and 11am - 3pm on Sunday. 

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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: Plankbridge's new Beach House

A gorgeous bespoke build for this week's Finery from shepherd's hut specialists Plankbridge. This one-off was built for a client on the Mediterranean coast, and fitted out with Fired Earth tiles, paints and bathroom products. Features include sustainable homegrown cedar cladding, panoramic windows, exposed ceiling trusses and wooden deck. 

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

 

A garden office adds £20,000 to the average property's value

More confirmation that a garden office or studio (or indeed other shedlike build) makes your property more valuable comes from property specialists Regency Living.

Its latest report indicates that adding a new physical structure in the form of a garden room or office means you should be looking at an average added value of around 7.5% which, based on the current UK average house price of £268,548 is equivalent to £20,141. 

Similar, though lower, additions also suggest benefits including a conservatory (£18,798) and prefab summer house (£13,427). Even a simple shed or storage space with a concrete floor will boost your property value by 2.5% (£6,714).

Sales & Marketing Director at Regency Living, Tim Simmons said: “Maximising garden space is always a good way to add value to the home. When it comes to property value, a home is worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for it, so if you’re creating something unusual and a step above the competition, even in modest ways, you’re going to capture buyer attention and inevitably increase the price they’re willing to pay.”

Image courtesy Booths Garden Studios

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Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master, bespoke garden rooms and offices designed, manufactured and installed throughout the UK

 

Multi-purpose garden room and office

Here's an example of one of the most popular garden room builds at the moment from Cosy Garden Rooms, a multi-purpose garden room with separate storage area (in this case replacing a dilapidated summerhouse).

It's a 6m x 3m garden room, built on a concrete base. An internal partition wall creates a 1.2m storage area equipped with its own external UPVC solid panel door for easy access.

The front and right sides are clad in composite cedar slats for a natural and maintenance-free aesthetic. To reduce costs, the rear and left sides were clad in durable grey Hardie board composite, a practical choice for areas not visible from the main view.

Other features include 3m-wide double sliding patio doors,a full-height corner window, 300mm overhang along the front and right-hand sides, and an infrared heater. 

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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

Woodlands Home & Garden Group grows retail network with second showsite in Scotland

Specialist garden building manufacturer and retailer Woodlands Home & Garden Group has opened its second retail outlet in Scotland. The new show site is located in Glencarse, Perth, as Woodlands and the Tiger brand as they expand their presence across the country.

The Tiger garden building franchise, launched in partnership with Wood N Garden Timber Buildings, features more than 50 garden buildings in an 11,000 sq.ft display area. The location in Glencarse has been operated by Wood N Garden for decades, and having established a successful reputation across the region, the company decided to partner exclusively with Tiger to boost their growth.

The new site will also benefit from the operational launch of Woodlands’ large warehouse and distribution facility at its sister site in Glenrothes, Fife. This will ensure Scottish consumers can enjoy the same  levels of service, delivery and installation to other UK customers.

Ross Moran, Chief Executive at Woodlands Home & Garden Group said: “We are delighted to be partnering with Wood N Garden Timber Buildings, with their rich family heritage of delivering high quality garden buildings with excellent customer service in Scotland. We have enjoyed a really positive, long-standing relationship with their whole organisation, and we are delighted that they want to take our collaboration to the next level. We believe Scotland is a really important and exciting region for us, and we look forward to a bright future for Tiger across the country.

"The new Tiger franchise, which is our second in Scotland and our 10th overall, is a significant landmark for Tiger’s offline strategy, creating a network of franchise-operated locations across the UK to complement our existing online success and build on our position as Britain’s market leader in garden buildings.”

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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 Roots of Wellbeing studio

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show’s Houseplant Studios section is once again sponsored by Malvern Garden Buildings this year. One of the most interesting looks to be The Roots of Wellbeing studio by Botanic York which describes it as "a cosy and comfortable space to live and work in retreat from the chaos of modern life. Trailing plants fill the walls and dangle from the ceiling to create a feeling of being immersed in plants. Visitors brush past curtains of greenery to enter the inside jungle where plants are used to delineate an office or workspace."

The designers say the studio is very much focused on managing a healthy work-life balance, and how greenery can enhance remote working inside a "jungle-inspired office". Features will include hanging troughs with trailing plants, a reclaimed table for working surrounded by herbs, with a living wall on the outside of the build.

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

Beehive garden studios

It's always nice to see garden office designers thinking outside the box. Beehive offers a fully bespoke service but it's the company's trademark design which looks like a traditional ‘skep’ beehive that catches the eye. The key element is the use of natural cedar shingles, but it comes with everything else you'd want in a garden office or studio (decent insulation, various heating options, range of internal finishing possibilities, double-glazed windows) all within a stud work superstructure made from kiln dried pressure-treated timbers, with sheet materials  a combination of OSB (Orientated Strand Board) and structural birch plywood. 

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Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master, bespoke garden rooms and offices designed, manufactured and installed throughout the UK

 

Spectacular Springfield treehouse goes on the market

A truly spectacular treehouse, ideal for garden office use, has just come on the market in Northumberland.

Springfield Treehouse was designed and build managed by Napper Architects of Newcastle who were also behind the iconic Alnwick Treehouse in 2004, built by Sir Robert McAlpine. Springfield is actually a twin treehouse with two turrets, both with two floors and inside ladder access, a bridge joining them together.  

It's on with various folk including Finest Properties and Sanderson Young with a £5.75m price tag which includes nearly three acres of grounds and a six bedroom house, as well as a greenhouse, gardener’s store and additional shed, plus a four-car garage.

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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 studio with Devon views

A really gorgeous multi-use garden studio build from Carpenter Oak in southern Devon which replaced a previous delapidated shed and greenhouse. The main feature is this impressive barn-style interior with exposed oak beams, plus bi-fold glazed doors, and smashing views of the hills outside.

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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: Gothic garden office windows

This week's Finery comes from the Posh Shed Company whose Victorian Gothic-inspired windows are not only very attractive but also UV-efficient and double-glazed. 

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

 

Kitting out your new greenhouse

As we've mentioned before on Shedworking, greenhouses can be used as part of a garden office lifestyle. Cheshire-based family-run White Cottage Greenhouses have been in touch with some suggestions about important details to consider when setting up your greenhouse space (pictured above is its Arley model):

Cedar staging and shelving
 
Having a decent area to work and display your plants and crops is essential in any kind of greenhouse whether it’s a working house or used more for entertaining and relaxing. Staging, at table height, is needed to allow you to easily work with and display your plants. Shelving can help you to maximise the space in your greenhouse and is specifically needed for trailing species. Using staging and shelving of different levels also enhances the beauty of your greenhouse. Plants are elevated and precious species can be seen and displayed clearly.

Shading and climate control
 
Shades and blinds help to regulate the temperature and light levels inside a greenhouse and prevent plants being burnt by intense sunlight or affected by harmful UV rays.

Lighting
 
As well as lighting the interior for working, artificial light in a greenhouse helps with plant growth. Artificial light can support plants when natural sunlight is insufficient. This can extend daylight hours, improve plant productivity, and help enable year-round production.

Window boards
 
Used to cover the top surface of the brickwork inside the greenhouse, window boards create attractive internal windowsills. A beautiful design detail in their own right, window boards also provide an extra surface for small pots, accessories or tools.

Floor grates
 
Cast-iron floor grates add a beautiful period design detail to greenhouse floors. They also serve a number of useful functions. Floor grates (if placed over a drainage channel) improve drainage, enhance ventilation, and help maintain cleanliness by preventing water buildup and allowing dirt to be swept away.

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Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master, bespoke garden rooms and offices designed, manufactured and installed throughout the UK

 

How has hybrid working affected city centres?

An interesting report from Centre for Cities suggests, perhaps unsurprisingly, that debit and credit card transactions show hybrid working has led to the UK’s city centres taking a lower share of weekday spending than before the pandemic.

Centre for Cities – a research and policy organisation which aims to improve the UK’s urban economies –  compared in-person spending in 2019 and 2024 by city centre workers in London and nine other large UK cities, Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield.

It found weekday spending shifted away from city centres to workers’ home neighbourhoods during that period. The largest shift was in groceries purchases, and the share of spending in pubs, bars and eateries saw a modest shift from city centres to areas within a short distance of workers’ homes.

After-work socialising in London is now most likely to happen on a Thursday in 2024. In 2019, Fridays accounted for the highest share of all city-centre workers’ pub and bar spending, 25 per cent, falling to under a fifth in 2024. This corresponds with higher office attendance rates on Thursdays.

Across all other large UK cities, the share of pub and bar spending happening from Monday to Friday was lower in 2024 than before the Covid pandemic. Saturday has become by far the most popular day accounting for almost one in every £3 spent in pubs and bars.

Andrew Carter, Chief Executive of Centre for Cities said: “The data shows that hybrid working patterns have had a knock-on impact on spending by workers in city centres, with a likely impact on the takings of shops, bars and restaurants. As the world of work continues to change, where we end up in terms of days in the office will have implications for how vibrant the high streets around our offices will be.”

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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