The Scottish Shedder: new issue

The new issue of The Scottish Shedder, the newsletter of the Scottish Men's Sheds Association, is now out and downloadable here as a pdf. As always, it's packed full of goodies including lots of spotlights on Sheds across the country, personal stories from Shedders (including Andy Lorimer, Vice-Chairman of Stonehaven & District Men’s Shed, who won the title of ‘Shedder of the Year’ 2021), and details of new Shed openings and projects, including Stonehaven & District Men’s Shed which has been working hard on an eco-friendly project with their local primary school to provide opportunities for outdoor learning and for pupils to grow bananas.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday posts are sponsored by Henshalls Insurance, specialists in insuring garden offices and other garden buildings. Click here for more information.

 

Garden office background library 'noise'

We've talked irregularly over the years about music while you work in your garden office and also featured various examples of background noise to give your office a more populated feeling. Here's the latest we've come across, for people who only want a very quiet, but studious, sound vibe, the sounds of Duke Humfrey's Library at the University of Oxford. Strongly recommended, especially if you're doing some revision.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to your new teak garden room from Moonalabs. Unparalleled quality at an affordable price.

Writing shed postcard Ukraine fundraiser

Large congratulations to Dinah from the Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society who has successfully completed her postcard fundraiser for the Disasters Emergency Committee Ukraine Appeal (we each sent her a fiver, she sent us a nice postcard of her writing shed - mine is pictured above - and she donated the proceeds to the appeal).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

The RHS Garden Retreat

Brand new from The Posh Shed Company is The RHS Garden Retreat model, developed with the Royal Horticultural Society and indeed can be seen at RHS Garden Wisley at Battleston Hill in Surrey. It's fully insulated and double-glazed with a covered porch (with integral seat), attractive cedar shingled roof and three full height windows, but the Shedworking staff's eye was particularly drawn to its vaulted green roof section.

Here's what they say about it:

"The construction of the roof means that this design has the unique capability to have a living roof planted on top whilst at the same time having cedar shingles around the edge to give that rustic feel. The cedar shingles are blue grade (top quality) the roof pitch of the cedar section of the roof is 45 degrees. Internally the roof is vaulted giving as much of the external height into the internal area and creating a feeling of space."

There's a particularly good introductory offer on at the moment to the first 10 customers to order.

-------------------------------------------------------

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

 

Johanna Maria Voss: shedworker

German illustrator and artist Johanna Maria Voss is also a shedworker. Here is a rather nice side by side comparison of how her garden studio where she works looks like earlier this week compared to summer last year... 

---------------------------------

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.

 

Work From Shed: book review

When I published Shedworking: The Alternative Workplace Revolution back in 2010, there were very few books about sheds and none about garden offices. Since then, there's been, if not a flood, then a healthy flow of books about all aspects of #shedlife. But until now there's been nothing else dedicated solely to garden offices. Happily, the wait is over.

Work From Shed: Inspirational Garden Offices From Around The World comes from the excellent Hoxton Mini Press team of Ann Waldvogel and Martin Usborne, with text by Tara O'Sullivan and an introduction by architecture critic Rowan Moore. It's a fully illustrated hardback photobook, hand-pleasingly sized at 18cm x 22cm, printed on lovely high quality paper (indeed the book is carbon neutral) featuring an international collection of garden offices. The first half focuses on examples from the UK, the second looks further afield with selections from across the world (see below). Regular readers of Shedworking will be familiar with most, but certainly not all, of the builds, but that shouldn't put you off buying a copy because the illustrations are of excellent quality and numerous - there are plenty of full page and double-page images - and the short pieces of accompanying text provide useful details of key features, written in a friendly but authoritative way. Mercifully there's no unintelligible gushing.

This book brings the garden office story very much up to date, using very recent examples rather than dipping back into the history of shedworking (although we were delighted to see the iconic photo of George Bernard Shaw in front of his writing hut). It doesn't aim to examine the trend or make too much of the effects of the pandemic, but it is certainly an absolute must-buy for anybody working in a garden office, thinking of working in a garden office, or who doesn't yet realise that shedworking is the way forward in the 21st century. Also, they plant a tree for every copy of sold via their website.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Tuesday posts are sponsored by Garden Spaces, suppliers of                     contemporary garden buildings, offices, gyms and studios, many of 

  which do not require planning

Jonathan Wilson: shedworker

Jonathan Wilson, branding expert and Professor of Brand Strategy & Culture at Regent's University, London, has been a shedworker for a dozen years. In a post on LinkedIn he talks about the many advantages of his garden office. Here's a snippet:

1 day in 2010 changed my life. That’s how long it took to have a wooden kit garden office built. Since then, ‘the lab’ as I call it has been the place that I have done my best work... I do go to work. I have to give lectures and attend meetings, but the real work to get me on point happens in the lab."

--------------------------------------

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