Will 2015 be the year you start your own shedworking business?

If you haven't done so already, the latest report suggests that many of you will be taking the leap next year and starting a business from your garden office.

New research carried out by Angels Den UK’s largest 'business angel' network [disclaimer: its founders are friends of the Shedworking staff] reveals that more than one in ten people have put ‘starting my own business’ on their New Year’s resolutions list for 2015.

Although getting fitter, drinking less and losing weight unsurprisingly top the poll of nearly 2,000 people, 18 per cent said they were looking for a new job or a career change, and 11 per cent that they were planning to start their own business.

Of these, three quarters said that their plan was still at the 'just an idea' stage, but the other quarter had already begun the process of setting it up, such as obtaining a website domain name.

When asked what types of businesses they were planning to set up in the New Year, the top industries were:

1. Food/Drink- 16 per cent
2. Fashion - 13 per cent
3. IT- 8 per cent
4. Media- 5 per cent
5. Construction- 5 per cent

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

Wrong kind of shed on the tracks

We have a #shed on the line just east of #Bowling. Team on way to clear to maintain services #scotstorm Please secure things in your garden

— Network Rail Scot (@NetworkRailSCOT) December 10, 2014

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

How to keep your garden office tidy

 A useful little blog post by Jenna Spesard at Tumbleweed looks at 10 ways to keep your tiny house kitchen tidy. While not all the tips are appropriate for shedworkers, it's definitely worth a look as there are some useful ideas. For example, number 4 is all about considering high storage. "Having high shelves or hangings baskets can clear your counters and harness the underutilized space above your eye-line."
Image courtesy Notonthehighstreet.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Made in a shed: Mark Brend's new album

We've featured Devon-based musician, writer and shedworker Mark Brend and his work before on Shedworking and he has just released another album, Morrow (with Michael Paine), which was put together in his shed

Mark says the album references the mid-20th century British writer Phyllis Paul and shares with her novels an interest in the ambiguous territory between natural and supernatural. "Deploying piano, electric and acoustic guitar, flute, percussion, glockenspiel and organ with musique concrète textures and found sounds, we create a cryptic English pastoral noir, drawing variously on folk, evangelical hymns, jazz, Debussy and Maurice Deebank," he says.


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

The rise of the treehouse office

A nice piece by Tim Walker in The Independent  (disclaimer: they pay most of my mortgage) describes treehouses as the latest US property boom. "More and more treehouses are being built in the United States," says Tim, "not only for children but also as home offices, guest houses and tree-house resorts. Here's a snippet:

Over in Oregon, Michael Garnier, 66, the owner of the Out'n'About Treehouse Treesort, estimates that demand for parts from his mail-order treehouse supply business has doubled since 2013. "I've been selling parts for years but in the past year it's really exploded," he says.

Well worth a read (it's quite short). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Beach hut advent calendar enters seventh year

We've been covering the annual beach hut advent calendar in Brighton since it started seven years ago (see here for more details of past calendars), so we're delighted that Beyond Church has again been working hard to make it happen again in 2014. As in previous years, a different beach hut on the Hove esplanade will open its doors every night as Christmas approaches, each with an artistic festive surprise within. There's mince pies, warm drinks and almost certainly special guests every day between 5.30pm and 6.30pm, starting tonight with Hut 311. Good luck to all, and to all a good luck. --------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Garden studio with its own golf course

After queries about heating and insulation, how to theme your garden office space is probably the most common issue raised by readers. Green Studios recently replaced an old swimming pool outhouse, with the new studio above which features a home cinema, pool changing facility, and a golf simulator.

"A golf simulator needs a flat wall for the video screen which doubles as the cinema screen, and a higher than normal ceiling height," explains Steve Warr from Green Studios. "To achieve this, we dug below ground level and then built the garden studio to the height permitted within local planning regulations. By digging down and building steps from the garden down into the studio, we created a room with a generous ceiling height of over three metres which makes it perfectly roomy for even the most enthusiastic of back swings." --------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.