The perfect garden office?

A very funny piece by Judith Matloff in Forbes who says she has an ideal garden office, built over fruit trees, quiet (except for birdsong), beautiful Parisian-like light and with a bespoke oak desk. It's perfect except...
Well worth a browse.

Guide to Buying a Garden Office

Neil Johnston at Vivid Green has put together a handy 14-page guide to buying a garden office. As he says:

"A garden building, particularly one you are going to use year round, is a major investment. There are a bewildering array of designs, styles and materials to choose from and, unless you have some experience of building, the choice may appear overwhelming. This guide is intended to help you make the right choice for your situation. As well as our own views based on several years experience of designing and installing low energy buildings, we include links to independent sites and suppliers. We hope it is comprehensive but please email us with your suggestions for other relevant topics and any other feedback to make this a better guide for everyone."

Naturally, it has a slight lean towards Vivid Green's own models but to be honest it is pretty objective (especially at the start) and a useful initial guide if you're thinking of becoming a shedworker. It's available as a pdf and word doc. For a copy, click here to email Neil

Spa bunker

The owners of this 30 square metre WWII bunker in the Netherlands wisely decided against demolition and instead turned it into a shedlike atmosphere in their garden, installing a sauna, spa and hamam. Designs from Studio Arne Quinze (whose site has lots more lovely photos of the interior).

Audra Loyal/The Vespiary: shedworker

Continuing our series looking at shedworkers and their shedworking, Audra Loyal talks Shedworking through her garden office life (lots of photos of the build are also at her Flickr page:

I'm a fairly recent transplant to Missoula, having lived previously in California, Oregon and Japan. I came to Montana as a resident of The Clay Studio of Missoula, and then moved my ceramic equipment into the small shed. It's probably as old as my house (about 105 years old - ancient for this part of the country), but probably owes its continued existence (without a significant foundation) to the extremely dry climate here. Most of the studs were rotted off at the bottom.

Now, though, my focus has shifted to bookbinding and conservation.Last year I started my private conservation business, The Vespiary Book Restoration & Bindery. I called my business The Vespiary because a) my shed was infested with wasps and b) wasps work with clay and paper, just like me! Up till now I used one of the rooms in my house as a workshop, but have rapidly outgrown it. I'm really looking forward to having an entire structure dedicated to this craft.

A friend of ours is the contractor and we've been trying to use mainly recycled or local materials. We have a great recycled building store called Home Resource where lately we managed to score a great skykight. Our floorboards are locally harvested circle-sawn fir. We'll be picking up wool insulation from Sugar Loaf Mill soon. We've yet to find siding, but have a few leads.I'm hoping the project will be completed by the end of May, and will be updating my blog through the whole process.

My Etsy shop is currently a little thin right now because of the work on the shed, but is typically stocked with blank journals and notebooks made from recycled maps and Japanese chiyogami paper.

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Monday's posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists.Click here for more details.

Small Living Journal - issue 3 now out

In the new issue take a nose around the authors’ own homes. As editor Kevin Rose says: "Once inside, you’ll quickly see that small living does not place limitations on creativity. On the contrary, we’ve got homes that float, homes that roll, homes for the city and homes for the country – small homes for all." You can find issue 3 here.
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Monday's posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists.Click here for more details.

Bring the garden into the office

From comingBVia My Urban Garden Deco Guide
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Monday's posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists.Click here for more details.

Monolithic Cabins

Monolithic - whose cabins weigh up to 14 tons - offer this intriguing transportable domed cabin, which is 12ft wide but can be produced at various lengths. Built in Italy, Texas, they are specifically designed to be used as garden offices as well as small homes. These cabins claim to be particularly ecofriendly:

"They are cost-efficient, earth-friendly, extremely durable and easily maintained. Most importantly, a Monolithic Dome uses about 50% less energy for heating and cooling than a same-size, conventionally constructed building.

They are made up of a tough, inflatable Airform, steel-reinforced concrete and a polyurethane foam insulation and apparently have a proven ability to survive tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, most manmade disasters, fire, termites and rot. So your son kicking his football against the side is probably fine too.
Thanks to Freth for the alert
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Monday's posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists.Click here for more details.