BOX OFFICE from Roomworks

'A quality garden office at an affordable price' is the slogan for Roomworks' new venture BOX OFFICE, a more standardised, though still very attractive, garden office (pictured above) in addition to their bespoke service. It's built using SIPs and has double glazed units with high security locks. Other features include:
* 100% recyclable, coated steel outer skin designed for zero maintenance
* Two top hung opening windows either side of the access door
* Rain water run off with water butt
* Fully insulated floor on galvanised steel frame with adjustable feet

Inside it is clad with high grade oak veneer panels which contrast with the brushed steel light switches and sockets and the grey varnished French oak laminate flooring.

And as an extra encouragement, there's a free iPad for the first 20 orders.

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

Benjamin Britten: shedworker

The list of composers who wrote in their sheds is a sizeable one and includes Mahler, Grieg, Mozart and Haydn. Among their number is Benjamin Britten whose composing shed at his home in Horham, Suffolk, is a Grade II listed building. It is made of brick with a pantile roof and one window (with attractive rural views) and was built in the 1970s: inside, he wrote Death in Venice, Phaedra and his Third String Quartet. Interestingly, the listing is based on historic rather than architectural importance.
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The Shedlings

We featured shedworker Pete Crawford's garden office shedquarters four years ago and he has been in touch to let us know about one of his latest projects, The Shedlings Android apps for young children that help them learn (about numbers and sheds) as they play. Well worth a look.

'Footprint' Garden Office: underground shedworking

An intriguing theoretical design for a garden office from Nick Fisher who says it is designed to "question an ever expanding commuter culture and raise awareness of the environmental impact of urbanisation, offering a practical and sustainable means of working from home". It's the nearest we've seen to underground shedworking as it is partly submerged and uses a cardboard composite as its main component.

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Shepherds' huts for a florist and chiropracter

To underline that shedworkers can run all kinds of businesses from their garden offices, shepherd hut specialists the New Forest Hut Company have been blogging about two recent commissions. The first is for a florist in Hampshire to go in her cottage garden to be used as a workroom. Here are some details:

We will put extra windows to give more light and a stable door. No wood burning stove as this may give out too much heat for the blooms! - also the corners of the hut will have large buckets in containing flowers. Inside the wood cladding will be painted an antique white with hard-wearing eggshell and the wooden cottage windows a darker shade. The floor will be reclaimed antique pine floor boards - we'll varnish them in a matt varnish - will be very hard wearing and any spills can be mopped up as the varnish will protect the wood - we also think that reclaimed wood improves with wear so will always look lovely!

The second is for a chiropracter who will use the shepherd's hut as a treatment room at her home in Taunton, Somerset:

She has been working from home - with teenage children coming and going, she's decided that it would be more relaxing for her clients to be away from the house. A Shepherds Hut is the ideal answer, sited at the bottom of the garden and reached by a gravel path, there is no need to go into the house (there's also an outside gardener's loo on the back of the house for patients' convenience!). There will be electric running from the main house to sockets for an electric treatment couch and a slimline eco-electric radiator which will keep the temperature constant during the winter months.

More details at their interesting blog.
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Visit Roald Dahl's writing shed

Dahl's home at Gipsy House, Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, is open to the public every summer as part of the National Gardens Scheme. There's still an opportunity to visit it on July13 (2-5pm, £4, children free, homemade teas available). The garden is delightful (there's also a maze) but the main draw for shedworkers will be the chance to get up close to Dahl's writing hut and the gypsy caravan featured in 'Danny Champion of the World' and find your way through the maze. Below is a clip of The Birmingham Stage Company's production of Danny.

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Gardeners' World Live: best shedworking in show

We're catching up rapidly with the shedworkingesque show gardens at this year's major garden shows. Today, we're looking at the Gardeners' World Live starting with The Bodgery Sponsored by Vertibax (back and joint support specialists) which won a Gold Medal and Best in Show Facade for Chris Myers. It was a lovely Bodger's working hut, inspired by the traditional art of bodging (making chair legs and spindles) and a Bodger working in Chris's local wood on the Bolton Abbey estate.

More specifically garden officey was Working with Nature, designed by Anna and John Harrison and sposnored by Blue Gate Horticulture (theme: humans working alongside nature): the design showcased how the shed can be a fine and relaxing place to work.
The garden was also planted with bee and insect friendly plants to show how a garden can be productive while we are in the garden office, hard at work.
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.