Is Wayne Rooney about to become a shedworker?

Press reports today reveal that suspended England footballer Wayne Rooney has hired Pulmann Associates Architects to design a wooden shedlike atmosphere in the back garden of his home in Prestbury, Cheshire. According to plans (he has received planning permission despite some objections from neighbours) it will measure a decent-sized 7m x 4m with a height of 3.25m and will replace the much smaller shed currently on that spot. Perhaps he'll be using it as a garden office with a gym element?
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India Knight just doesn't 'get' shedworking

You know that a major trend has come of age when wellknown media folk start to knock it. Following yesterday's post about Janet Street Porter's views about shedworking and homeworking, here's what India Knight has to say about garden offices in the latest issue of Red magazine:

"I write my books at the kitchen table and my Sunday Times column upstairs. In a previous house I had an office, but I didn’t like it. I get inspiration from what people are doing and saying, so I came back down to the kitchen table. I like being in the same room as my children and not acting like some genius artist locked away in the shed."

Your comments very welcome...
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Janet Street Porter just doesn't 'get' shedworking

A most bizarre piece in the Daily Mail by Janet Street Porter looks at the pros and cons of homeworking in general and shedworking in particular. As she says, and I don't think she means this in an entirely positive way, "Modern sheds have seagrass on the floor, pictures and prints on the walls, a satellite dish on the roof, an easy chair for reading and a desk for the swanky computer." She then goes on to mention various advantages of working from your garden office, such as eliminating the commute (although again here there's not exactly fulsome support for the idea of homeworking).

But then she goes on to make the normal lazy clichéd list of things that homeworkers are supposed to get up to (fool around on the internet all day, constantly snack, etc) and then comes up with an entirely new complaint, that working from home is actually bad for your work/life balance. It's an incredible claim, compounded by her following remark that "The Government is promoting home-working to save money, but the social costs could be tremendous." In Global Entrepreneurship Week and at a time when frankly it's the home-based businesses which appear to be one of the few success stories in the economy, it just seems a particularly shortighted and illinformed line of argument. But what do readers think?
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Crushed Beaks: musical shedworkers

(video contains flashing lights)

Crushed Beaks debut single ‘Sun Dogs’/’Close Ups’ will be released on November 21 and as the band's Matthew Poile and Alex Morris reveal in an interview with DIY, their shed is their creative home. Here's a snippet of what Matthew says:

"We practice in my shed so we can rehearse pretty much whenever we want. A little and often is the way forward. It takes a lot of the stress out of making music, I mean in terms of logistics, we don't have to phone round a bunch of people trying to find a date that everyone can do and then drag all our gear to an expensive rehearsal room, it's all just set up ready to go. I spend a lot of my time in that shed. A few weeks ago I decked it out with posters and stuff. We even have a fridge in there."

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An Afternoon in the Pub

We've been talking about 'pubworking' on Shedworking for several years now and included a section on it in the Shedworking book. So we've been delighted to watch the development of the St Albans-based venture 'An Afternoon in the Pub'.

Established by an informal group of St Albans designers, copywriters and social media specialists, the idea is that once a month, a local pub is the venue for a‘business social’ - it's not a formal networking event, more a pleasant afternoon to have a chat and a beer. Shedworking is fully behind this imaginative use of pubs and hopes it goes onto great things. Here's their blurb:

"The backbone of any town is its local businesses and we want the businesses of St. Albans to know that there is a free, relaxed, humour-filled environment where we can all get together, learn about each other, understand each other and see if there are ways in which we can help each other."

The next event - which the Shedworking staff will be attending - is on November 16 at the White Hart Tap in Keyfield Terrace, St Albans (pictured above): it's free and there will be nibbles. As well as their website/blog, you can find them as @pminthepub on Twitter and on Facebook.

Underground garden office

We've covered various underground shedworking possibilities before on the site, but this one (see on the excellent Tiny House Blog) is perhaps the nearest to being genuinely practicable. The video is a step-by-step guide to using a shipping container to build an underground room (with advice on how not to be buried alive or flooded out too...).
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Solar powered garden office

Insurance Shoppers is a health insurance brokerage owned by Jay and Louise Norris in Wellington, Colorado, which is run from their garden office. "We've always had a dream of having an office in our backyard," says Louise. "A fully insulated, finished shed makes a great place to work. Solar power works great in Colorado where we get 300 sunny days a year. Also, the whole thing only cost about $4,000, including the solar setup. A very affordable solution." You can also find them, and more photos of their shedworking atmosphere, on their Facebook page.

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