Sarah Hadland: Shedworker

The star of the comedy series Miranda and The Job Lot according to a story in the Daily Mail. "I had this office put in the garden last year," she told the paper, "because my two-bedroom Victorian coach house is quite small and I wanted to start writing comedy scripts. It's now my haven as I love being outside in my garden." The garden office was built by Harrison James. --------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Nature shelters

These rather nice shedlike atmospheres based on traditional fishermen's huts from LUMO architects are in fact nature shelters, dotted around 17 sites in coastal Denmark and aimed at enhancing tourism in the area (although they would also make smashing garden offices too). There are 47 of them, with wood chip cladding and covered in wood tar oil, in five different models, each named after a kind of fish. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master: garden offices and studios to fit any size garden. Top quality contemporary or traditional buildings.

Beyond Live/Work: The Architecture of Home-Based Work

There are plenty of attractive books about sheds, garden offices and colourful introductions to working at home, but at last there is a book which is not only well illustrated but also tackles the subject intelligently and comprehensively while still being readable.

In fact it's so thorough that it's hard to do justice to the book in a single blog post and Frances Holliss - an architect and Emeritus reader in architecture at London Metropolitan University - will be writing a guest post for Shedworking next month on the subject. But in brief, Beyond Live/Work looks at the history of people working at home (not just in the UK, there's particularly good coverage of Japan for example too) and the types of location in which they do it, including garden offices. There are also many interviews with homeworkers to emphasise the human element in homeworking.

There is plenty here to get your teeth into, from cottage factories (of which I was shamefacedly ignorant), a fascinating list of homeworking occupations made by Victorian work researcher Charles Booth (are there many gold-leaf beaters still shedworking today?), and suggestions for the future (from courtyard workhomes to 'flirting benches' so homeworkers get a chance for romance...).

But it's also a book with several messages, not least that the 20th century idea of 'going to work' is likely to look like a blip in the history of working as homeworking continues to rise. "This represents a radical change in our society," she writes. "It has huge implicains for how we inhabit, think about and regulate our homes, workplaces, and cities."

Frances mentions how many of the people interviewed for the book are the backbones of their community. "All are visible, well-known members of it and generally work long hours in some form of public service." She also strongly argues the case for the eco-friendly nature of homeworking and against the nightmare of commuting.

In short, this is the best book I've read about working from home and you should all certainly buy a copy. For a taster, have a look at Frances's website WorkHome which holds a vast collection of homeworking resources. ----------------------------------------------------

Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here

Zombie Fortification Cabin

There are plenty of niche garden office products, but perhaps none nichier than the Zombie Fortification Cabin (ZFC-1) from Tiger Sheds. A Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign in collaboration with Zombie Infection earlier this month did not reach its target but you can still go direct to Tiger Sheds if you're interested in a zombie-proof log cabin (with 10 year anti-zombie guarantee). 

Features include a barbed wired surround, arsenal storage unit, and allotment area to grow your own vegetables. They can also provide water cannons, search lights and flame throwers. And of course solar panels. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Homeworking predictions from 2010 about 2015

An interesting post at Pocket-lint by Chris Hall who in 2010 peered into his crystal homeworking ball to wonder what it would be like in our shedlike atmospheres five years down the line. Here's how it starts:

I love my commute: I walk 3 metres from my back door into my garden office. I've been a home worker for nearly 10 years now, as many more people are. Continued investment and enhancement of the broadband infrastructure has changed a great many things, making working from home more of a reality. It is no longer seen as "bunking", because it can be as interactive as any office ever was. Government pressure to reduce emissions from big business has seen tighter, more efficient, working practises and a huge reduction in commuter culture, fuelled by corporate tax breaks, of course.

Well worth a read. --------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Garden office garage conversions

Research from Sainsbury’s Car Insurance reveals that garages are becoming a less common feature of Britain’s family homes, with an estimated 3.9 million people having 'repurposed' their garage over the past 20 years to provide extra living space (a standard-sized single garage can give you around 14m² of extra space).

The most popular choice is to make it into a workshop (26%), followed by an office (20%), although other ‘converters’ created bedrooms (13%), playrooms (7%) or extended their kitchens or living rooms in to their garage (16%).


Anecdotally, according to property experts, converting a garage to provide additional living space can add up to 10 per cent to the value of your property.

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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.

Apocalyptic shedworking

If you've ever wondered how you would continue working from home in your garden office in the event of an apocalypse, then here's the video for you... ----------------------------------------------------

Wednesday posts are sponsored by The Stable Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here