Shedworking on Apartment Therapy

Apartment Therapy is high up on our favourite notreallyshedworkingbutstillofinterest places to wander around, so we're delighted to see the kind words in their recent write-up of us and that other shed blog. Here's a snippet:

"For those of us who've had fantasies of living, Thoreau style, on Walden pond in a minimalist cabin we may have drooled over streamlined prefabs nestled in forests or dreamed of going off the grid right here in the city. They're great fantasies, but a closer reality might be the humble garden shed, more prevalent in the UK than here in the states, but a great idea nonetheless. The small space once used to hold tools and potting soil is now used as a home office, for outdoor entertaining, as a study, as a playroom and even for gardening."

Sibelius vs sheds

Sibelius' Karelia Suite (Intermezzo) with shedlike atmospheres in illustration.
Via Warren Ellis. Thanks to Chris Routledge for the alert.
Name That Shed will return next week.

Disco Shed feat Dub Pistols' Barry Ashworth

Performing live out of an actual shed has become a celebrated Saturday night out at the Westbury. The Disco Shed presents shedliner, Barry Ashworth with a Dub Pistols DJ set. With recent collaborations with the Specials’ Terry Hall, reggae legend Horace Andy and British Hip Hop crusader, Rodney P expect a set built on tough breakbeats, but equally immersed in hip-hop, ska, reggae, punk and soul. Count Skylarkin’ backsup the mashups alongside the shed’s resident Arthur Fowler, DJ BarryDark and Head of Shed, Peepshow Paddy.

This is the Disco Shed's flagship party as it hurtles towards its natural home of summer festivaldom, and will be transforming the concept of what a DJ booth can, and in the name of fun, should be. Hanging baskets, disco balls, Bridget Fonda workout videos and Des O'Connor album covers are all scheduled to appear.

The mobile disco shed is best known for kitschly pummelling festivals with its party soundsystem, from the bigger (Reading) to the middler (Big Chill) to the tiddler (Latitude).

Any shedworker can have free entry by emailing info@discoshed.com with Shedworking @ The Westbury in the subject line!

Timber Architecture news portal

Cameron Scott who designed one of our favourite garden offices, the Milton Studio, has now set up a news portal for Timber Architecture dedicated to timber architecture. Well worth a browse as is the associated blog. I particularly liked the piece on Blau, a new timber frame multipurpose shelter launched at this year's EcoBuild in London and now available for order: we'll cover it more fully on Shedworking next week.
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Thursday posts are sponsored by Vivid Green, the low energy garden building specialists. Click here for more details

MPs expense scandal: duck shed

Now this is a nice shed...

Sir Peter Viggers, a Tory grandee, included with his expense claims the £1,645 cost of a floating duck house in the garden pond at his Hampshire home.

Via Daily Telegraph
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Thursday posts are sponsored by Vivid Green, the low energy garden building specialists. Click here for more details

Riverview: garden office renovation

Chris Lindley's garden office renovation is progressing nicely as the new photos on his site show. Happily he says he is still enjoying the build and it does look rather nice. Chris is also documenting the renovation of his new home as well as the garden office in pictures on his Flickr site.
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Thursday posts are sponsored by Vivid Green, the low energy garden building specialists. Click here for more details

John Bocook: mobile shedworker

We're witnessing a lot of interest in tiny house living at the moment and I wonder if the time has come too for mobile shedworking to take a leap forward. Here is John Bocook's set-up, above and below, and here's what he says about his shedworking life:

"When someone tells you they work from a van, I bet you think plumber or cable installer. I am a media designer (web designing, video, photography). I love to be outdoors and enjoy working remotely as I travel a lot. One of the benefits of working for yourself i guess. Today I come to you from a van. I am on my laptop in a beautifully constructed 1992 astrovan. There are shed workers - I believe we can take it one step farther. Who says you have to be confined to an office? I have a power charger and a verizon internet card of my laptop and can spend 8-10 hours here enjoying whatever countryside I decide to work from."

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

Squatters' Cottage

It was a very tricky Name That Shed last week, but the answer was Squatters' Cottage up for sale with agents John Goodwin. For obvious reasons, most squatters cottages (built on common land) have not survived but this one dates back at least to 1814 when it appears on an enclosure map. It's a timber frame with thatched roof (with corrugated iron on top) and wattle and daub panels. According to Goodwins, it has been in the ownership of the current family for a century and is said to have been won in a bet. They go on to say:

"The property has lain almost undiscovered for decades and is hidden away in a lightly wooded area of approximately 1 ¼ Acres in a secluded yet convenient location only two miles north of Ledbury on the edge of the village of Wellington Heath. The property is a Grade II listed building and planning permission was refused in November 2005 in response to a comprehensive redevelopment scheme. Further discussions held with the Planning Officer for Herefordshire Council have resulted in an indication of support based on a very contemporary proposal prepared by architects Stainburn Taylor of Ledbury."

The proposal is pictured below. Guide price £125,000.----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday's posts are sponsored by The Garden Room Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here.

George Meredith: shedworker

19th century writer and thinker George Meredith put pen to paper in this 'writing chalet' in the grounds of his home, Flint Cottage on Box Hill. According to Nigeness: "He would spend hours in the chalet, in a fug of tobacco smoke, writing, pacing about and conversing with his characters at length... Meredith loved Box Hill - 'I am every morning at the top of Box Hill,' he enthuses, '- as its flower, its bird, its prophet. I drop down the moon on one side, I draw up the sun on t'other. I breathe fine air. I shout ha ha to the gates of the world. Then I descend and know myself a donkey for doing it...'
Via Nigeness (including the photo). Thanks to Christine Farmer for the alert
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Wednesday's posts are sponsored by The Garden Room Company®, the UK's premier supplier of garden offices and garden rooms. Click here.

Garden office commute: James Weaver

Artist and owner of the artcafé on the island of Mersea, James Weaver (whom we profiled here) has sent in a photo of his lovely garden commute. As he says: "It's quite a good run once you get past the barbeque!"