William Wordsworth's moss hut garden office

On a tour of Scotland in 1803, poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy saw a building Dorothy described as a “hay-stack scooped out”. It was a simple circular, domed wooden hut, lined with ‘fog’, the Scots language term for moss.When they got back to their Dove Cottage home in the Lake District, they built their own version with marvellous views over the fells and it was here that they entertained and William wrote poetry, including his masterpiece The Prelude. Like the hut they had seen in Scotland, it was lined with moss and covered outside with heather with a long seat around the interior - William described it as like a "wren’s nest" and even wrote a little poem about it:

No whimsy of the purse is here,
No Pleasure-House forlorn;
Use, Comfort do this roof endear;
A tributary Shed to cheer
The little Cottage that is near,
To help it and adorn.

Bad news, the hut was demolished by a later owner, the writer Thomas de Quincey and there are no images of it surviving. Good news, in 2020 a replacement hut was built by designer Charlie Whinney (featured previously on Shedworking) in collaboration with natural world campaigners somewhere-nowhere out of Cumbrian oak at Dove Cottage along the same nest-like lines as the original (see images above). It looks tremendous and it's hoped that it will inspire new generations of writers. All the pandemic stuff has rather got in the way of a proposed tour of the moss hut in the region, but it's in situ at Dove Cottage and there are hopes that once things improve it can hit the road in 2021.

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Nooka garden office launches

Launching a new approach to working away from traditional offices during a time of a garden office revolution seems like a smart idea, not surprising when that idea comes from co-founder and CEO Leanne Beesley, the force behind the innovative Coworker.com.

 

So here is the newly-launched Nooka which claims to be the world’s first network of wifi-connected, fully equipped, ergonomic garden offices. Each one comes with full workstation setup including a Steelcase electric height-adjustable desk and ergonomic chair, whiteboard, and smart heating/cooling system. There are various sizes 6m/5m/4m/3m x 3m x 3m, all with window walls, glass door (bi-fold for larger models), and attractive roof overhang, but its modular system makes things quite flexible. It comes in three colours, yellow, orange and pale blue.

 

There are certainly some interesting aspects of Nooka. For a start, instead of paying for your garden office all in one lump sum, they offer a lower installation fee followed by a monthly subscription. Also, you can join the Nooka network and rent yours out to people locally (by day or hour) using its app, think Airbnb for garden offices. Alternatively, you can rent other Nookas yourself.

 

Nooka is a European company and currently all orders have been within Europe as they are not shipping to the US yet. It is producing its first orders at its manufacturing facility in Romania, with deliveries starting in March this year. The aim is to have approximately 50 "out in the wild" by April available to rent, including some in the UK (COVID-related restrictions permitting).

 

 

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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

Inside Cressida Cowell's shed

Writer Cressida Cowell is excellent at keeping us updated with photos of her path to her garden office throughout the year and also regularly records videos inside her writing shed, but here's a treat, a close-up of her writing desk. Note the lucky horseshoe.

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Ricky Boleto builds his Newsround garden office shed

BBC Newsround presenter Ricky Boleto has been charting the makeover of his garden shed into a television studio on Twitter (see above for the before and after shots). Here's what the BBC says about it: "It's kitted out with power, internet, neon lights that change colour, a massive TV screen and lots of other gadgets to help him report on the latest stories from home." 

He's now put together a great little video about his new garden office which you can see on the BBC's Newsround site here. 

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The importance of the garden office commute

 

We've often talked about the 30 second garden office commute here on Shedworking so we were interested to read in the Wall Street Journal (£) that people are developing fake commutes because they miss the routine. Here's a snippet:

It can be a walk around the block. It can be a stop at your local coffee pickup counter or your favorite drive-thru. Many workers have replaced their pre-coronavirus commutes with allotted time around work shifts where they break away from what can be the monotony of working from home, also known as the pretend or "fake commute." One woman told the Wall Street Journal she missed having a "clear dividing line in her weekday." Researchers recommend this practice as a means to fend off burnout.

Shedworking believes this is one of the important things to consider when shedworking, that although you don't have to fight your way through traffic jams or a crowded underground, it's still good to start the working day with a ceremonial commute. While it’s not usually the highlight of the day, it does at least effectively mark the border between home and work. So instead of cracking straight into it after breakfast, nip outside and have a brief wander. Not too long, this is merely taking the air and getting yourself in work mode, not exercise. It’s your 30 second commute.

The Guardian has an interesting gallery of articles about how the pandemic has affected commuting in the UK.

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Garden office tax planning: business ownership

In the third and final part of this excellent series by Helen Thornley, Technical Officer at The Association of Taxation Technicians on accountingWEB (see here for the previous two) she looks a a wide range of issues including structures and buildings allowance, VAT, and what happens when you come to sell your house. Here's a snippet, talking about 'benefit in kind':

One approach would be to view the pod as an asset which has been lent to the director and is available for their use, but to which legal title has not been transferred. If the pod does not fall within the special rules for living accommodation, then the general rules will apply. The HMRC view is that living accommodation is something that gives the occupant the necessary facilities to live domestic life independently without reliance on others to supply basic needs, so offices and workshops are excluded.

In this case, unless the pod is hired, the cash equivalent of the pod to be assessed each year as a benefit will be 20% of the market value of the asset when first made available – most likely the cost of the asset when new. This is likely to be more significant than the benefit in kind for living accommodation and, if the pod is to be kept long term, it might be better for the director who wants personal use to pay to install it privately. In the first tax year, this benefit can be apportioned so the individual is only taxed on the number of days since the pod was first made available.

As with previous blog posts, this is well worth reading.

Photo courtesy Warwick Buildings

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Wednesday’s posts are sponsored by Norwegian Log Buildings  - Log cabins and garden buildings for a better quality of life. Click here for more details.

 

Straw bale garden office

A tremendous garden office meeting room built for and by Outpost architecture and design studio based in London. Here's what they say about it:

"Our straw room is a self-build project that highlights the ease of building with natural building materials making it an affordable and accessible solution for the UK’s housing needs. The walls are solely load bearing straw bales, with then lime render to both the inside and outside surfaces. This construction technique creates a building envelope that has high thermal mass, high U-value of 0.1 and fantastic acoustic qualities. All the materials we used (straw, sheeps wool, lime render and timber) are low embodied energy materials that create an architecture with health and well-being benefits over traditional construction methods."

More details and images at the link above. 

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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