Building a garden office during coronavirus lockdown

Although garden office suppliers are used to dealing with all kinds of installation issues, lockdown has provided some really major challenges. Here's an example of what can be done though, a 5m x 3m garden office with sliding doors for a couple in Whitstable, Kent, by eDEN Garden Rooms which was installed at the end of March.

On the safety first basis, although all the materials had been delivered, the team left the site but quickly established that construction work could continue since they would be outside (and they had also worked out a no-contact build scheme).

"It took our skilled team three days on site to erect the timber frame," explains eDEN's Mia Walmsley, "and after this we were forced to withdraw as our suppliers and builders’ merchants were forced to cease trading to non-essential businesses. All we could do is wait, keep our customer well-informed and continue to review the situation until a time that we could safely and practically return to the site to complete the project. Over a four-week period we took the project step-by-step, all the time fulling complying to the government rules and always keeping our crew and customer’s health as the ultimate priority. More than ever, our customer needed a working home-office and slowly-but-surely, we managed to complete the build after 4-weeks, which would have been 2 weeks under normal circumstances."

eDEN is continuing to work within the easing lockdown restrictions and is offering virtual site surveys as well as its no-contact build methods. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of which do not require planning

Lego garden office

We've covered a few Lego garden offices/sheds on Shedworking, but this is the first animated one, a marvellous one put together by the nine-year-old daughter of Mark Powles, managing director of RRA Architects. It includes a biophillic green wall and an especially attractive feature that we'd like to see become standard in garden offices, a wall which folds down into a deck. Volume, as they say, on.

Our MD loves LEGO & so does his 9 yr old daughter.
She built a #Garden #Office with #biophillic #GreenWall and a wall which folds down into a deck. Then made a video of Daddy at work!#ProudDad #LEGO #WFH #RRAArchitects @LEGO_Group @RIBA pic.twitter.com/OSWhk6M03Z

— RRA Architects (@rraarchitects) June 7, 2020

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

Moving from a London office to a garden office

An interesting article in the Metro, an interview with Hereford-based Chris Giddins, who runs ecommerce promotion engine Uniqodo. Here's a snippet:

Before the crisis hit, Sarah and I would normally spend four days of the working week in London. We’d then travel back to our Hereford home on the weekends, working one day from there. As the whole team is now working from home, we’re back in the Hereford home full-time. We are incredibly lucky to have our office in the garden! We thought it would make sense to have this as we usually split our time between London and Hereford, so we built a small oak-framed out building last year. As we’re working from home full-time now, it’s amazing to have somewhere to keep work separate. I feel incredibly lucky to have this extra space and that we were already well set up to work remotely. Although, when we have conference calls I have to go outside or to the kitchen as my partner says I’m too loud!

It's worth reading the whole thing via the link above - at the end of the interview Chris adds that working from home has not only given him time to explore his local countryside, but has also "made me consider what the future of our London office might be as we haven’t really needed it and everyone’s been working well from home." ---------------------------------------

Sunday posts are sponsored by eDEN Garden Rooms. Stunning, bespoke high quality garden rooms, to suit your unique space and style

St Bride Library virtual wayzgoose

Some of you may know that Shedworking HQ is also home to an Adana printing press as the staff explore the delights of letterpress printing. This weekend St Bride Library in London is running a virtual wayzgoose (a kind of annual fair for printing enthusiasts). Among the attractions is printing guru Bob Richardson talking about letterpress from his shed, home of the equally venerable St Margaret’s Press.

Two Minutes of Type with Bob Richardson from St Bride Library on Vimeo.

For more information, you can follow St Bride Library on Twitter, use the hashstags #virtualwayzgoose and #twominutesoftype (which also work on instagram where you can see videos), and also head to their vimeo page. ------------------------------------------------------

Saturday posts are sponsored by woowoo waterless toilets, the best toilet for your garden office

Steve Coogan and Simon Farnaby find inspiration in their sheds

Simon Farnaby (Horrible Histories, Detectorists, Paddington) is the author of a new shed-ish children's book called The Wizard in my Shed which, it says here, will mix "laugh-out-loud action adventure, with a fun-filled magical, historical twist". Illustrated by Claire Powell it is due out in October this year and the second in the series in 2022.

Meanwhile, Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge is returning as the Norwich-based DJ in an 18-part podcast produced from his shed, called From the Oasthouse: The Alan Partridge Podcast. "All national treasures have a podcast", said Partridge. "If David Dimbleby has one, then of course I needed to make one. With this series, I want to give my fans an intimate view of who I really am. You may think you know me, but trust me, you have no idea what goes on behind closed doors at my podcast innovation studio."

The series will be on Audible from September 3 and a free episode will be available on Amazon Alexa between 6 and 12 June. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Garden office for children's homework sessions

Maybe a sign of things to come in this garden office by Norwegian Log for a family in London - rather than being used by the parents, it is specifically for the owners' Aizad and Sobia Hussain's teenage children who need somewhere quiet and comfortable for their homework and exam revision.

“We wanted an area for them to study, a thinking space, away from interruptions. We needed an urgent solution and we couldn’t wait to apply for planning for something like a basement. It also needed to fit with the style of the house,” said Aizad. “It just focuses the mind. Time somehow seems very slow as there are no disruptions. There’s a sense you are in a library. When I was at University I used to always go to the library to study and I wanted something similar.”

Features include a small decking area, air conditioning, and remote-controlled heater.

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Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master: garden offices and studios to fit any size garden. Top quality contemporary or traditional buildings.

Music shed

A really lovely music studio garden office from Campos Studios for a musician in Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada. It comes in at 48 sq ft.

Photos: Andrew Latreille

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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.