ABBA: Shedworkers

The wooden composing and writing hut on the Swedish island of Viggso is where members of the power ballad group ABBA wrote many of their hits. Owned by Agnetha Faltskog and Bjorn Ulvaeus, it was large enough for Benny Andersson's piano (which sold last year for £35,000) and a couple of chairs. A recreation of it  is now on show at the Abba museum in Stockholm.

And here's a short video with the band's hair stylist taking a look inside.

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Indoor beer garden office

Another entry for the interior shedworking folder as HubSpot redesign their Cambridge HQ - their expanded property features a large meeting/event space with 'bleacher seating' and an indoor beer garden and coffee house-style café with barista for working.
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Space Shed for city farm

We posted about Walton's Space Shed last year and many of you wondered what had happened to it. Well the good news is that it's gone to a good home - Waltons has donated it to Stonebridge City Farm for use as a potting shed and to grow vegetables and fruit inside. It's already in situ on the farm which was set up 40 years ago and works with people experiencing social exclusion or learning and physical difficulties. Pictured below are Michele Campbell (Darth Vader), Stonebridge City Farm Education and training; Annie Warburton (Princess Leia), Stonebridge City Farm volunteer; and Stephen Gee (Han Solo) Stonebridge City Farm operations co-ordinator.

Marie Rodgers, Farm Manager at Stonebridge City Farm said: “We are delighted with our new Space Shed. Without the support of organisations such as Waltons and other local farms, charities like ours struggle to keep running. We will be able to use the shed to work with small children, especially on a rainy day. We will be doing lots of potting plants, and other activities in the shed. The shed is going to be such a wonderful thing for people to come and see and it will be a great feature for the farm.“

The shed is made from a solid timber frame, clad with 12mm tongue and groove timber. It also has two opening shatterproof styrene windows for ventilation as well as two removable timber shelves.

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Holidays for shedworkers

 When you need to get away from it all but still want the delight of a shedlike atmosphere, treehouse hotels may be the answer. Here's a nice piece in The Independent about six of the best around the world including Is Keemala on Phuket, Thailand, inspired by a mythological clan, the We-Ha (Sky) people, who are believed to have built their homes suspended from the ground. Well worth a browse. --------------------------------------------------------

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Garden office vs coworking space

Is freelance office space the best option for self-employed workers? asks The Guardian via a reader who is considering the joys of shedworking. You can see the results in print in this Saturday's paper but there are already comments online from various readers, both for and against, such as:

No. From experience co-working spaces are full of bell ends, dreamers and no hopers. Stick with the garden office and occasionally work from a coffee shop to change things up a bit.

 Worth taking a look at the weekend and taking a look at the comments via the link above. -----------------------------------------------

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Janet Murray: Shedworker

'The Art of Reinvention and How Janet Murray Transformed From Teacher to Journalist to PR Consultant' is the title of an interesting podcast from Inspirational Creatives which features Janet talking about her career choices and especially on her garden office Shedquarters, as well as female shedworkers. Well worth a listen. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

The Autonomous Home Office

A really nice piece by Eric Grevstad at PCMag looks at self-driving home offices and the kind of tech kit that would make a genuine difference to any shedworker or homeworker, from intelligent printers to foldupable offices. Here he is on having a robot personal assistant:

"An artificial intelligence butler like Jarvis from Iron Man (but without the taking-blue-humanoid-form-and-donning-a-cape part) that can respond to voice commands. It could check my schedule, take a letter, or gently wake me. I would add the ultimate synthesis of smart calendar, to-do, email, and customer relationship management (CRM) software, with everything from OS X's Reminders to the Timeful technology Google acquired for Gmail—which lets you schedule imprecise tasks such as fitting in three trips to the gym in a week."

Well worth a short read. --------------------------------------------------------------------
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