SketchUp: garden offices

SketchUp is a nifty little designing tool from Google which helps you to create, modify and share 3D models. Here's an example from Eddie Miller, a half glass 15 square metre garden office with full length glass sliding doors. If you've used SketchUp (or indeed anything similar) please do get in touch.
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Thursday posts are sponsored by Vivid Green, the low energy garden building specialists. Click here for more details

Shed Chic winners + special Shedworking offer

Congratulations to the winners of our competition to win copies of Shed Chic by Sally Coulthard. Copies will be winging their way to Laura Fortune (quite a long wing that one) and Vicki Garlan who correctly identified the colour of Shedworking HQ (greenish).

But don't despair if you're not Laura or Vicki. Readers of Shedworking can order the book at the discounted price of £15.99 (rrp.£20) with free p&p if you call 01903 828503 quoting ref JS 218.
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Thursday posts are sponsored by Vivid Green, the low energy garden building specialists. Click here for more details

Design a Dogs Trust dog shed for National Shed Week

Dogs Trust, the UK’s largest dog welfare charity and official charity of National Shed Week 2009 has teamed up with readersheds.co.uk for a special competition. Entrants are asked to design a special shed for dogs and encouraged to be as creative as possible. Closing date for entries is June 1. The Shed Week judges (including me) will pick the winner which will them be built and go on display at Dogs Trust in Bridgend. More details at Shedblog
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Thursday posts are sponsored by Vivid Green, the low energy garden building specialists. Click here for more details

Cloud Bar for Earth Day

Shedworking is celebrating Earth Day today in the same way we celebrate all big events - with a mildly appropriate shed. Pictured above is the Cloud Bar on the beach at Anderby Creek in Lincolnshire which opened earlier this month for business (well, for pleasure actually). According to The Cloud Appreciation Society it is the world’s first ‘Official Cloudspotting Area’. The concept of the Cloud Bar shed came from Michael Trainor, the artist behind the marvellous Bathing Beauties Beach Hut Festival and general bonanza. On the top viewing platform are special cloud identification 'menus' with mirrors to help with your cloudspotting.
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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.

Shedworking on the radio/podcast

The radio/podcast that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago is now up and running on BlogTalkRadio and dsmBuzz. If you want to hear a whole half hour of me talking about shedworking, then this is your chance. Just click the links and it should start buffering you up straightaway. Here's how the host Sherry Borzo introduces it:

When our two children were young and space was limited, I worked out of a home office for a company as a salesperson. Even with a 3-bedroom house that had two solariums, along with the standard rooms, we could not accommodate a separate space for me. Ultimately, for 6 years, (6 LONG years) I took over the living room during the work week. After a tirade or two from interruptions and my own sloppy filing habits that made for a constant mess, I became so desperate for a separation of "work and life" that I placed duct tape around my desk to create "office boundaries."

Faced with work-space limitations Alex Johnson, journalist and owner of of Shedworking came up with a far superior solution to his need for work-away-from-home environs. In this interview, find out how Alex has turned his own great idea into creating a resource for others who have either made the garden office leap or desire to do so.

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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.

Remote Worker Awards launched

A new award, launched by Remote Employment, will highlight how remote working, homeworking and shedworking benefits the environment, business productivity and employees' quality of work life - and Shedworking will be among the judges.

The Remote Worker Awards come at a time when companies across the UK are faced with downsizing their workforce. The awards aims to raise awareness for remote and home working as an alternate solution to redundancy and the traditional nine to five office routine.The Remote Employer Award will honour the winning Remote Employer that demonstrates how remote working and home working has made a beneficial impact on their business.

Employees who work remotely or work from home will be given the chance to impress their employer and work colleagues by winning The Remote Worker and Home Worker Awards. All freelancers, self employed consultants and project contractors are invited to enter The Freelance Consultant Award. These workers, who already enjoy the benefits of a flexible employment solution, will be given the chance to show traditionalists why more companies should be recruiting this way. And they will walk away with thousands of pounds in prizes, including a fabulous luxury weekend at a von Essen hotel.

Paula Wynne, organiser of the awards and co-founder of Remote Employment, a specialist online recruitment service expects to unearth an abundance of inventive pioneers who champion flexibility with remote working solutions. “The Remote Worker Awards will feature the winners in a Remote Worker E-Book to help other companies to implement a flexible and remote working program,” she said.

The Remote Worker Awards has lined up a prestigious panel of judges including serial entrepreneur, Karen Darby, founder of SimplySwitch, Cath Roan from Careershifters, Diana Robertson from Business Link London, Tony Corbin of MATiSSE and Jackie Brennan of FreshIdeas Events, Jeff Zbar (founder of the US-based Chief Home Officer site), and me.

For more information or any other enquiry about the Remote Worker Awards, call 0844 800 8355 or 020 8133 6329 or browse www.remoteworkerawards.com.

Justin Knopp/Typoretum: shedworker

Here's a garden office setup which I know will get many of you drooling: Typoretum (a lovely web site) is an artisan printed letterpress greeting cards and social stationery business run by Justin Knopp in Coggeshall, Colchester. Inside his shed, he hand prints, in limited quantities, from antique wooden and metal letterpress type, decorative borders and printers’ fleurons using vegetable-based inks and on paper made from 100% cotton fibre (linter). Here's how he describes the garden office:

"It's only about a quarter of the size I need but it's as big as the Council would allow us to build at the end of our garden! I really need a barn. The remainder of my collection is elsewhere, including my 1888 Wharfedale press that weighs 4-ton on its own.I designed my shed myself and, since we are in a Conservation Area, I made it look like a small barn with a hipped roof. We dug deep and specified reclaimed slates rather than the bland composite type or bizarrely coloured Chinese slates at tuppence a throw. The structure is studwork with 75mm foam insulation, concrete base and reclaimed floorboards that I bought on eBay.

There is also a Typoretum blog . I can't recommend the site too highly. Please do nip along and explore it (and buy something).