Garden Office Week

It's Garden Office Week over at Judy's great Work From Home Wisdom site. Above is today's offering, Katy Duke's blind-making workshop from where she runs her Thermal Blind Company. It used to be a row of school lavatories... As she says: "It’s fabulous to trip down the path in the sun and open the doors to birdsong, with the salvaged rooflight giving lots of daylight. It’s a bit Heath Robinson but I love it." While you're over there, take a browse around as there are lots of interesting posts in general for those who work in shedlike atmospheres. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Library studio

A lovely combination of shedworking atmosphere and home library in this build by 3rdSpace in the Oxfordshire garden of a professor of literature who needed a space to store her books, but lacked the space inside her home. According to Ben Couture, it is also "fully de-mountable, meaning it can be 'flat-packed' and moved if the customer relocates in the future".

"Most of our modular buildings utilise Western red cedar cladding," says Ben, "but in this case Thermowood was the perfect material which takes well to the matt black finish. We also suggested positioning the cladding vertically to mirror the orientation seen through the spines of the books inside."
The core of the construction is a Douglas fir post and beam system. The installation of the library studio took five days to complete on site, including fitting-out with Vitsoe shelving. ----------------------------------------------------------

Friday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

How to build a garden office (video)

We haven't had a good time lapse video of a garden office going up for a while so here's a recent one from Smart Garden Offices for Taunton-based Bediwin Information Services who provide local small businesses with dependable computer, IT support and managed services. -----------------------------------------------------

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

Harry's Hideout on DIY SOS tonight

Tiny House UK donated one of their marvellous pieces of microarchitecture to a family in Fareham some months ago and the story behind it is due to appear on BBC1's DIY SOS at 8pm tonight. There's a whole microsite devoted to Harry's Hideout and here's the BBC's bumph:

"Hanna and Mike have three kids, two of whom are twins who were born prematurely. One now suffers from cerebral palsy and the other is profoundly deaf. The family house is tiny and the cramped conditions are making life extremely difficult and at times dangerous for the growing boys. Nick Knowles and DIY SOS team call on friends, family and the local community to come to the aid of this young family and build a single storey extension in just nine days." 

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

Plankbridge expands into Australia

Shepherds' huts specialist Plankbridge is expanding its empire well beyond its Dorset base to include Australia. It will be shipping its new-build huts to Brisbane as part of a joint venture with Steve and Mellissa Chaddock who emigrated from the UK some years ago.

"I really like the idea of shipping corrugated buildings like firms in Bristol did in Victorian era," Plankbridge co-owner Richard Lee told Shedworking. "I love corrugated iron and the idea that orders for our huts in Australia are helping to employ craftsmen in Dorset, just as they did 150 years ago, fills me with huge optimism for the future.!"

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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Love Your Hut and new Hutters

We mentioned the launch of Love Your Hut – the new specialist insurer for garden offices, beach huts, chalets, shepherds' huts and other shedlike atmospheres – earlier in the week and were pleased to hear that they have already successfully set up a new beach hut association with the 'Hutters' at Heacham Beach, Norfolk. The 101 huts will now benefit from discounted premiums, as well a specialist policy.

Matthew Briggs from Love Your Hut said: “It is great news that Heacham are forming a new association.  We’re really looking forward to working with them and helping them achieve their future goals.  Another association creates another beach hut community and that’s what we want to help do, create more of them.” ----------------------------------------------------------
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Friday posts are sponsored by Warwick Buildings, manufacturers of outstanding quality timber buildings. Click here for more information.

Todd Daniel: shedworker

I have a small house and had two children at home at the time so I couldn't figure out how I'd be able to work from home, writes Shedworking reader Todd Daniel of Powder Springs, Georgia, USA. I did some research on the Internet and found a guy in Louisville, Kentucky, who had built an office shed. I corresponded with him for a while and he was very helpful, and I incorporated some of his ideas.

The shed is in my backyard, 40 feet from the house. It is 12 feet x 15 feet. When we were closing our office, my boss suggested that I take a cubicle with me and set it up inside the shed. This turned out to be a brilliant idea because it helps to dampen outside noise and it holds heat in during the winter. It actually makes my office area quite comfortable.

I work in the shed during the day and in the evening it becomes my "man cave" because my hobby is working on computers. I also like the outdoors and working out in the shed makes me feel closer to nature. I do have my two dogs for company and protection.

I use wi-fi for Internet and I have portable heaters for winter and a small air condition unit for summer. There are two separate power lines -- one for my air condition and heater and one for my computer equipment. I did this to avoid the electrical surges that the a/c and heater would have on my electronics.

At the time I was finishing out the inside, my boss sent a professional out to inspect it. Both he and the fellow in Louisville recommended something very important - a fart fan. In addition to its obvious purpose, I also use the fan in the spring and fall to suck out warm air and get the temperature down a few degrees. Thus, I only need to use my a/c in the heart of summer.

It's nice walking 40 feet to work every morning, and the only occupational hazard is stepping on dog poop.

More photographs of Todd's garden office are on his Flickr site ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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