Win £10,000 off an Arctic Cabin or Cabin Master garden room

A great competition from Arctic Cabins and Cabin Master. To celebrate 10 years of their Nottingham show site, they are offering £10,000 off a garden room or BBQ cabin to one lucky winner in their draw. Simply enter your details to take part, no purchase necessary, and it's free. And you can get bonus entries by visiting the show site and registering with the sales team, and also by buying a cabin. Do check the Ts&Cs but essentially you need to be over 18 and resident in the UK. Entries close August 31.

Click here or here to enter. 

Enter via the form for 1 entry, and get bonus entries by:
- Visiting either Midlands show site & registering with a member of our sales team (+1 bonus entry), and
- Purchasing a qualifying cabin: (+1 bonus entry.)

Beach hut libraries

The marvellous Lire à la Plage scheme which runs along the Seine-Maritime coastline in France is celebrating its 20th anniversary this summer.

Run from 13 blue and white beach huts operate as open air libraries and also include author meet-and-greets, writing workshops, and activities by the sea, this year's theme is 'What were we reading 20 years ago, and what are 20-year-old readers reading today?'

Running until August 23, this year's patron is novelist Katherine Pancol 

Rouen is also putting on an open-air photographic exhibition 'Reading at the Beach is 20 Years Old' on the railings of the Departmental Council building until August 21.

The 13 libraries are in Jumièges-Le Mesnil, Criel-sur-Mer, Dieppe,  Étretat,  Fécamp , Le Havre,  Le Tréport,  Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, Saint-Valery-en-Caux, Veules-les-Roses,  Yport, Saint-Jouin-Bruneval and Sainte-Adresse. They open 11am until 7pm every day, with around 1,000 books per cabin.

Photo courtesy Département de Seine-Maritime

Friday Finery: garden office greenery

For this week's Finery, a reminder that while the view of your garden through your garden office windows may bring to mind thoughts of hay fields, it will all bloom again. The example here is of a particularly 'bringing the outside in' Cabin Master build.

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

 

New figures suggest the beach hut boom is over

After a boom in popularity during Covid, beach hut prices appear to be in freefall, according to new figures from online estate agent Yopa.

Asking prices in eight of the UK's popular coastal counties fell 9.8% in the year to July 2026 according to Yopa, while in the year to July 2025 they saw a 19.6% drop, partly a reaction to an increase in supply.

The figures indicate the worst decline in prices has been in West Sussex, a fall of 35% from £33,044 to £21,444 in the year to July. It is followed by Norfolk (13%), and then
Essex and Hampshire (12%).

Bucking the trend are Suffolk which has seen a rise of 6.6 per cent to £27,676, and Dorset up 2.8% and representing the most expensive available, for example at Mudeford, at an average of £105,343.

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Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master, bespoke garden rooms and offices designed, manufactured and installed throughout the UK 

 

Shepherd's hut art studio

A nice case study on the Plankbridge site all about the shepherd’s hut art studio of Elizabeth Shields in Somerset who specialises in family portraits. Here's a snippet:

It’s exactly the right size. There is generous wall space for paintings, and I love the panelling because it makes hanging work so easy. One whole end is windowed, looking out onto the veranda, so the studio is filled with natural light throughout the day... It is a calming place and it smells amazing. As soon as you walk in it smells like you are ready to work – inviting and comfortable, I really enjoy it, walking up the garden to get there. I always find I have to watch my timekeeping there because I forget what I am meant to be doing elsewhere. The outside world recedes almost immediately.

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Wednesday posts are sponsored by Booths Garden Studios, the UK's No.1 supplier of zero maintenance and portable garden studios

The rise of the back garden business

New research commissioned by Dunster House reveals how UK entrepreneurs are transforming their homes and outdoor spaces into professional business hubs. 

The interviews with 250 UK adults who run their business fully from their home, a small garden office or outdoor workspace, reveal that 46% say their enterprise is critically financially important and their primary source of income. 

Combined with those who rely on it for significant additional earnings, nearly three-quarters (74%) describe their home business as either their main income source or a substantial financial contributor.

At the same time, 62% have invested money specifically into home or garden offices, or a home workspace to support their business, while 14% cited the prohibitive cost of commercial renting as a key reason for operating from home.  

Nearly half of respondents (47%) started their business in pursuit of a better work-life balance, while 36% wanted to work from home by design, and a further 36% sought greater flexibility in how and when they worked.

Among 18 to 24-year-olds, 29% run online retail or e-commerce businesses compared with just 14% of those aged 55 and over. Among 25 to 34-year-olds, 12% run content creation or social media businesses, and a further 12% operate in fitness, yoga or personal training. 
 
The most common workspace is the study or home office (20%), but a substantial proportion of entrepreneurs are running their businesses from wherever space allows: the living room (14%), a summer house or garden room (10%), a spare bedroom (10%), a workshop or studio (9%), a garage (6%), or even the kitchen or dining table (6%).

The survey finds that home business owners have invested an average of £5,170 into their workspace, with more than a third (36%) having invested at least £5,000.

When asked what they would invest in if money were no constraint, the answers point strongly towards workspace quality and professional infrastructure. Better broadband or Wi-Fi tops the list (34%), closely followed by improved heating or air conditioning (34%) and a fully insulated garden office (32%). Dedicated storage space (28%), a larger workshop (27%), soundproof studios (21%) and smart technology or security systems (21%) also feature prominently.

Pic courtesy Dunster House

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Monday's posts are sponsored by Smart Modular Buildings, the UK's best garden room company

 

Friday Finery: Yard of the Year (video)

There's nothing like Shed of the Year in other countries but in Alberta, Canada they do have a Yard of the Year competition run by CTV which has just announced its winner, one which contains several lovely sheds. Enjoy these two short videos below:

 

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