British Cabins & Hideaways: An Opinionated Guide

Another one to fit into your shedworking bookshelf, this is the latest title from Hoxton Mini Press who also published the excellent Work From Shed a couple of years ago. 'British Cabins & Hideaways: An Opinionated Guide' is by Holly Farrier (pictured above) and is apparently carbon neutral - here's what the publishers say about it:

Discover Britain's most glorious cabins and hideaways for exploring all the wide and beautiful corners of this country. Whether it's a tree-house in the Cotswolds or a modernist bolthole on the Isle of Harris, nature and calm away. And if inner peace isn't on the cards, then at least you'll have a hot tub. Ahhhhhhh.

Following on from Hoxton Mini Press’ highly successful series of pocket-sized, paperback Opinionated Guides, and the popular 'British Boutique Hotels', this sumptuous, larger hardback is part of a growing series of guides to Britain: with more detailed write-ups, more stunning photography, and even more opinion.

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Work From Shed: book review

When I published Shedworking: The Alternative Workplace Revolution back in 2010, there were very few books about sheds and none about garden offices. Since then, there's been, if not a flood, then a healthy flow of books about all aspects of #shedlife. But until now there's been nothing else dedicated solely to garden offices. Happily, the wait is over.

Work From Shed: Inspirational Garden Offices From Around The World comes from the excellent Hoxton Mini Press team of Ann Waldvogel and Martin Usborne, with text by Tara O'Sullivan and an introduction by architecture critic Rowan Moore. It's a fully illustrated hardback photobook, hand-pleasingly sized at 18cm x 22cm, printed on lovely high quality paper (indeed the book is carbon neutral) featuring an international collection of garden offices. The first half focuses on examples from the UK, the second looks further afield with selections from across the world (see below). Regular readers of Shedworking will be familiar with most, but certainly not all, of the builds, but that shouldn't put you off buying a copy because the illustrations are of excellent quality and numerous - there are plenty of full page and double-page images - and the short pieces of accompanying text provide useful details of key features, written in a friendly but authoritative way. Mercifully there's no unintelligible gushing.

This book brings the garden office story very much up to date, using very recent examples rather than dipping back into the history of shedworking (although we were delighted to see the iconic photo of George Bernard Shaw in front of his writing hut). It doesn't aim to examine the trend or make too much of the effects of the pandemic, but it is certainly an absolute must-buy for anybody working in a garden office, thinking of working in a garden office, or who doesn't yet realise that shedworking is the way forward in the 21st century. Also, they plant a tree for every copy of sold via their website.

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Shoulder to Shoulder: Broadening the Men’s Shed Movement

A new addition to the shedworker's bookshelf, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder: Broadening the Men’s Shed Movement’ by Professor Barry Golding is a follow up to his 2015 The Men’s Shed Movement: the Company of Men and looks at the state of men's sheds around the world today in the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US and Denmark, as well as Women’s Sheds. Barry is a Professor in adult and community education of Federation University Australia in Ballarat.

The book includes 130 case studies - 20 from the UK - and additionally looks at how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the movement. "The book captures the essence of Sheds and answers how and why they work," says Charlie Bethel, Chief Officer, UK Men’s Sheds Association

If you order both books here, you can get a 25% discount by using the code SHOULDER 2021. 

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Shed Heaven

One for the shed section of your bookshelf, Shed Heaven by Anna Groves is published by National Trust/Pavilion. What makes this stand out for those working in garden offices, is that in addition to the various sheds owned by the NT on their properties, there is a significant focus on the ones in which people worked. There'll be no surprises for readers of Shedworking in terms of the properties, but it's nicely done. Here's the bumph:

"The National Trust looks after many of Britain’s most important and beloved buildings – its sheds. They lurk in the shadow of grand country houses; they brave the elements on the tops of cliffs; they have inspired famous writers and housed everything from beehives to birdwatchers.

"These beautiful and sometimes eccentric structures are as individual as their owners. A Victorian coastal shed in Cornwall is where the Reverend Hawker went to write verse, and smoke opium. It’s also the smallest building cared for by the National Trust. George Bernard Shaw’s shed could be rotated throughout the day to make the most of the sun, while sculptor Barbara Hepworth used hers for napping in. Rather than a place in which to create, many of these sheds are the creation.  

"Alongside the literary writing dens and horticultural hideaways there are also floating sheds, coastguards’ sheds, artists’ studios, summer houses, beach huts, camping pods, bothies, teahouses, follies and much more."

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Little Free Libraries & Tiny Sheds - book review

If you like sheds and you like books, then you will certainly enjoy Little Free Libraries & Tiny Sheds: 12 Miniature Structures You Can Build. Written by Philip Schmidt and Little Free Library and published by Cool Springs Press (£16.99/$24.99 - part of the Quarto stable who also published my Book Towns book last year), the Little Free Library movement (motto:‘Take a book, return a book’)is probably the most successful library project of the 21st century – there are now more than 80,000 in 91 countries around the world.

These handmade tiny libraries, often built to look rather like oversized bird boxes, are placed at strategic locations in neighbourhoods such as front gardens, yards and parks, but also in coffee shops and near restaurants. Anybody can remove a volume and deposit another for others to share. 

The book features full instructions detailing how to build a dozen designs ranging in size from the popular small box model to a full shed structure. Among them is the blueprint for the first Little Free Library, built by Todd Bol in 2009, who wrote the forward but sadly died shortly before this book was published. As well as information on installation and maintenance, there are also sections on how to publicise your little free library, what to stock, how to encourage community involvment, and a lovely collection of some of the most interesting around the world. It's really nicely put together, genuinely useful, and supports a great cause.

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Homesick: Why I live in a shed

Published in July by Quercus and described as 'The story of a personal housing crisis that led to a discovery of the true value of home', this is one to look out for if you're interested in tiny homes as well as shedworking. Here's the bumph:

Aged thirty-one, Catrina Davies was renting a box-room in a house in Bristol, which she shared with four other adults and a child. Working several jobs and never knowing if she could make the rent, she felt like she was breaking apart. Homesick for the landscape of her childhood, in the far west of Cornwall, Catrina decides to give up the box-room and face her demons. As a child, she saw her family and their security torn apart; now, she resolves to make a tiny, dilapidated shed a home of her own.

With the freedom to write, surf and make music, Catrina rebuilds the shed and, piece by piece, her own sense of self. On the border of civilisation and wilderness, between the woods and the sea, she discovers the true value of home, while trying to find her place in a fragile natural world. This is the story of a personal housing crisis and a country-wide one, grappling with class, economics, mental health and nature. It shows how housing can trap us or set us free, and what it means to feel at home.

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Middle England by Jonathan Coe: a shed review

There was a spate of novels which featured sheds half a dozen years ago but sadly very few since. One recent example in which shedworking atmospheres feature is Middle England by Jonathan Coe. We asked John 'Shedman' Davies to review it for Shedworking:

“Genius. Loved it. Wonderful satire and some of the best shed sequences written in many a year!” That was my tweet after reading Middle England and I’m still of the same opinion about this marvellously humane, and far from one-sided take on the Brexit saga, the third in Coe’s series of novels about the Rotter family in Birmingham.

Nowhere is the satire more fun than in the scenes set in or around sheds. A garden centre features strongly as the setting of a kind of perverted Eden where you can take Aged P’s (as Wemmick refers to his father in Dicken’s Great Expectations) for tea. But it also used as the venue for meetings by one of Benjamin’s old school friends, now a publisher of local history books. He’s arranged to meet the author of ‘Postcards of old Droitwich and Feckenham’ to discuss its publication. The author thinks they should go and discuss things “somewhere less public,” and so begins a very funny peregrination to find a shed of a suitable size to host their meeting.

“At the rear of the Woodlands building, hidden from the car park, hidden from the main road, lay its most secret – but for many its most precious – enclave. For here were the sheds…structures designed to furnish the married Englishman with perhaps the thing he craved most of all: a place where he could escape his family without actually leaving home.”

It turns out the postcards book is just a pretext for a much darker project. As Benjamin says, ‘You never know what you’re going to find. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s nasty, a lot of the time it’s as weird as hell. But that’s England for you. We’re stuck with it.’

A rich vein of satire emerges from David Cameron’s love of his shepherd’s hut: "Dave has become a very different person since resigning. Very humble. Contemplative. He realized that it was time for him to take some big decisions in his life.’ ‘Such as?’ ‘Well, buying a shed for instance.'"

But the apologist eventually turns on Cameron in a fierce diatribe: ‘Cameron?’ said Nigel, his face twisting. ‘What a twat. What a grade-one, first-class, copper-bottomed arsehole. Sitting in his fucking shed writing his memoirs. Look at the mess he’s left behind.’

Middle England is brilliantly funny, in turns acidly and gently satirical, and very, very perceptive. The Rotter family’s continuing grief over the Birmingham bombing by the IRA, forms a sobering backdrop to all the talk of backstop.

John's latest collection of work Nest - New & Selected Poems is published by Red Hen Press in North America and as Jizz by Kingston University Press in the UK.

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Hideouts: Grand Vacations in Tiny Getaways

Gestalten is arguably the leading publisher of microarchitecture coffee books which feature a range of garden offices and other shedlike atmospheres (see here for reviews of previous publications). Here's the latest, Hideouts, which is highly illustrated and features builds from around the world. And here's what they say about it:

The way we travel has changed. We no longer want a generic, one-size-fits-all vacation: We want to explore on our own terms and immerse ourselves in local culture. Simply witnessing nature is no longer enough—we want to live in it. A fusion of glamour and camping, Hideouts will guide you to experience the most awe-inspiring locales around the world. Across the globe, you’ll find incredible destinations, each offering their own unique advantages. You can wake up in a yurt on a mountain top, reside in the forest canopy in a treehouse, or take in incredible panoramic views in an eco-lodge—and that’s just to name a few.

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The Book of Shed

Former winner of Shed of the Year in 2014, shedbuilder Joel Bird has just published The Book of Shed. Subtitled Designing, Building and Loving Your Shed, it takes readers through the various stages of doing what it says on the tin with sections on the history of sheds, inspirational ideas, the build itself, and various case studies. You can get a feel for the contents by reading Joel on his I Am Shed site. Below is an example of his work, a yoga garden office, and Joel himself in a lovely shedworking environment.

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The Hinterland: Cabins, Love Shacks and Other Hide-Outs

Another attractive coffee table tome to add to the Shedworker's Bookshelf, this time from Gestalten (see here for our reviews of their previous shedlike offerings). The publishers quite rightly say that "The cabin has become our third place, our hideaway where we can recharge our spirits and reconnect with ourselves, away from the restraints of society and the stress of the everyday" and to that end present a well-illustrated collection of microarchitectural delights, many of which would be perfect as garden offices. Here's their blurb:

Escaping from the city and the everyday. Making a home within the forest’s foliage. Using architectural remains as a foundation for a new retreat. These are the makings of many daydreams and the realities present in The Hinterland. For, even if it only lasts a moment, we all need a change of scenery. Cabins provide that coveted change. Located on mountain tops, nestled in villages, or ensconced in lush forests, The Hinterland showcases homey hide-outs and charming cabins from shelter to domicile. These getaways free us from the distracting and unessential, and offer to put us back in touch with nature and reclaim our own inner peace.

Thoughtfully crafted and built, the stories behind these structures are just as curious as the walls themselves. Through portraits of the inhabitants and their invitingly inventive homes, The Hinterland explores architecture and design approaches to creating works that refresh and revitalize amidst the beauty of nature. With the right materials and mindset, this stirring collection reveals that we can all create our own radiant refuge and follow the call of The Hinterland. 

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Cabins by Philip Jodidio

One for the bookshelf, Cabin is a lovely illustrated book about cabins and shedlike atmospheres in general by Philip Jodidio with illustrations by Marie-Laure Cruschi (see above). Interestingly publishers TASCHEN say that the book "explores how this particular architectural type presents special opportunities for creative thinking" and as well as showcasing the work of big names such as Renzo Piano, Terunobu Fujimori, Tom Kundig it also features an artist's studio on the Suffolk coast. Slate has a nice review of it with lots of photos which will make you want to buy it.

Shed decor: Shedworkers' bookshelf

A book to look out for in February next year, Shed Decor by Sally Coulthard (author of the excellent Shed Chic) promises to be an "inspirational guide to decorating and furnishing outdoor rooms and garden sheds" which will help us design, decorate and equip your shedworking space. According to Sally: "These important outdoor rooms deserve as much thought as any living space within the house."

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my cool shed by Jane Field-Lewis

A decade is a long time in shed books. Ten years ago, Gordon Thorburn's hugely successful book 'Men And Sheds' was published featuring an entirely male lineup of shedworkers, hobbyists and Suffragen Bishops, photographed by Laura Forrester in black and white (one per double spread), mostly unsmiling, all from the UK, and in very traditional sheds. It helped - as did the previous year's launch of readersheds.co.uk - to kickstart renewed interest in shedlike atmospheres.

Ten years on, and with Sally Coulthard's Shed Chic book in between, we now have Jane Field-Lewis's new book 'my cool shed - an inspirational guide to stylish hideaways and workspaces'. The huge number of photographs are in full colour, the sheds are from all over the world, and the sheddies are both male and female. There's even a sourcebook at the end to help you get the look as well as gorgeous endpapers (see image below). The term 'shedworking' is now used without explanation. Much has changed.

my cool shed is split into several sections looking at artists, musicians, retreats, gardeners, writers, workspaces and time out. Many of the people featured are shedworkers (indeed plenty of the 35 garden offices and sheds featured have appeared on this blog or in the Shedworking book) which underlines again how much has changed in shed useage since 2002. Each entry also has a section called 'style notes' which allows Jane - who is a professional multi-disciplinary stylist - to talk through the look of each shed with her expert eye.

Jane writes nicely and there's no pretentious gobbledygook. It's a lively read and her hard work in tracking down some marvellous sheds (I particularly like French artist Richard Texier's studio at the end of a pier) has paid off in spades. But what really makes it stand out are the several hundred photographs by Tina Hillier. She has absolutely got to grips with each of the sheds, picking out intriguing details inside as well as atmospheric exterior shots - even if you're familiar with some of these sheds, there are so many new shots of them that you won't be disappointed.

You should certainly buy my cool shed (published by Pavilion in hardback at £14.99) - not only is Jane a decent person, this will definitely be the best book about sheds published this year.

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Total Office Design

Total Office Design: 50 Contemporary Workplaces is a new book by Helen Parton and Kerstin Zumstein published by Thames & Hudson (who will be publishing the Bookshelf book early 2012). It's a marvellous, well-illustrated look at interesting workplaces, none of which are boring, expensive or harmful to the environment (you'll recognise a few which have been featured on Shedworking over the years but the majority will be fresh delights).

The book - which is out now and available in all the normal places - is organized into separate sections featuring small, medium and large projects, each one fully illustrated with photographs, drawings and plans. It's as thorough a job as you'd expect from Zumstein and Parton who are specialist design and architect journalists, familiar to many of you from their work at onoffice magazine which is one of our daily reads.

We asked Helen to pick our four of the most shedlike entries exclusively for Shedworking and here they are:

Bearstech, Paris
This is an office of an IT firm Bearstech in Paris. The architect, Paul Coudamy, sourced scrap wood from skips around Paris to create a cave-like (or could that be shedlike) interior within an interior and a seriously cosy atmosphere.


YCN, London
This is the office of a creative agency that promotes design in Shoreditch. The designer, Tomas Klassnik, used inexpensive materials such as plywood, as often found in the shed, and plenty of surfaces on which to brainstorm. There was a real DIY ethos to this project, something any shedworker would be proud of!


Van Der Architects Studio, Tokyo
In order to think outside the box, Van Der Architects brought the box, or make the walls from an old Japanese house inside. The result is distinctly shedlike. The idea with the design of this office is to make the employees feel like it's a home from home, hence the domestic influences.


KK Outlet, London
Is it an advertising agency, is it a shop, is it a gallery space? Well this Hoxton Square space, designed by architects FAT, is all three. It's an intimate space, not much bigger than your average shed, and uses quite basic materials such as rubber flooring and ceramic tiling but nonetheless manages to be an inspiring working environment where great ideas are born.

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Small Green Roofs

Green roofs have been all the rage for the last couple of years but there has been precious little published about how to put one on your own shedlike atmosphere. Which is why this marvellous book Small Green Roofs: Low Tech Options for Greener Living from Timber Press by experts in the field Nigel Dunnett, Dusty Gedge, John Little and Edmund C. Snodgrass is so welcome. Here are some details from them:

Small Green Roofs is the first book to focus on small-scale and domestic green roofs. More than forty profiles of small and domestic-scale projects of all shapes and sizes include green roofs on sheds, garden offices, studios, garages, houses, bicycle sheds, and other small structures, as well as several community projects. For each project, details are given for design, construction, and installation, as well as how-to tips on how the roof was planted and cared for. For readers looking for inspiration when hiring a contractor or taking the adventurous step of building their own, Small Green Roofs provides the knowledge and encouragement to make it possible.

There are more than 200 photos over 250 pages. Well worth a browse.
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The Shedworker's Bookshelf: roundup

There have been several books published recently of interest to shedworkers. Here's a quick rundown:

1000 Designs for the Garden and Where to Find Them by Geraldine and Ian Rudge includes lots of photos and ideas for furnitures, art and luxury garden items, among them the garden office buildings of Neoshed and the Conversation Chair by Ana Linares, whose bookshelf design will feature in the forthcoming Bookshelf book

Create A Successful Website by Paula Wynne, organiser of the Remote Worker Awards, is a useful introduction for any shedworker or homeworker who wants to get to grips quickly with putting a business web site together.

Green Interior Design by Lori Dennis showcases plenty of ideas for making your garden office interior both stylish and eco-friendly with tips for furniture, accessorites, windows, plants and general advice on making your shedworking atmosphere healthier and more comfortable.

How to make working from home work for you is by Rachael Ross
and includes plenty of practical hints about how to set up your own shedworking office, looking at subjects such as storage, establishing your working space and how to beat isolation.
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