Shedworking

How to make sheds cool

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Sat, 19 May 2012 08:18:00 +0000

"The challenge for three teams of architecture students from Woodbury University in Burbank: Design the coolest, smartest cabin that you can dream up. The catch: Your building materials have to come from an ordinary, not-so-cool shed kit from Lowes."

Read the rest of this interesting feature at the LA Times. ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Park Farm Design

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:57:00 +0000

Over the last two years Park Farm Design has been contacted regularly to help with the design and build of garden room style buildings. They work with customers to create individually styled garden rooms which incorporate our high performance range of doors and windows in timber, aluminium or alu-clad. Park Farm have designed, supplied and installed their bespoke range of bi-fold doors, sliding doors and more traditional doors and windows to more than 100 garden rooms, offices, music rooms and gyms throughout the UK.

"In 2009 we crossed paths with Roomworks Ltd who we have since built a strong partnership with," says project design manager Lee Davenport. "Whilst we are Roomworks' chosen supplier for doors and windows we also supply to many private customers looking to take on a design and build garden room project themselves. Our experience and knowledge allows us to work with private customers who are looking to achieve their perfect garden room in a DIY fashion."

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Dunster House, the leading UK company for Log Cabins and Garden Offices sponsors Friday posts

The Shed Show

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:44:00 +0000

Monkworking: The Monastery

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:37:00 +0000

This is one of the most relaxing indoor shedworking structures we've seen on Shedworking. It's for Netlife Research (a 'user-experience consultancy') and is the work of Eriksen Skajaa Architects who were asked to rethink Netlife's offices to create new spaces for reflection and creativity. Their response? "When faced with the challenge of how to create three spaces for silence and the occasional phone call we proposed a Monastery with a monastery garden."

The walls are white pigmented birch veneer and the inner partitioning is based on the remains of existing brick walls. There are various niches dotted around, some to house plants, others big enough to be windows, and one serving as a bench. A lovely space in which to work.

Photos by Ivan Brodey.

Via dezeen

Artisan Retreats at Chelsea Flower Show

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:14:00 +0000

There are various treats on store at this year's Chelsea Flower Show - Jo Thompson's delightful shedlike caravan, Plankbridge's shepherd's hut, the Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow - but we're looking forward in particular to seeing the Artisan Retreats section.

Five models of garden office and summerhouse structures provided by RHS Chelsea exhibitor The Malvern Collection will be on show in the Ranelagh Gardens section of the showground, each one decorated by well-known designers and artists. The idea is to provide inspiration for people to become shedworkers (or at the very least, do up their sheds a bit). According to the RHS, the five are:

* ‘A Book Binder’s Workshop’ designed by Vicki Conran Full of interesting materials, papers, textiles and beautiful hand tools as well as a selection of books in varying stages of binding and casing.
* ‘Needlepoint Haven’ designed by Kaffe Fassett A peaceful environment designed for people to do needlework featuring yarns, canvases and examples of needlepoint plus a wing chair covered in needlepoint images of fruit, flowers and vegetables.
*‘Vintage Inspired Retreat’ designed by Orla Kiely Kiely's nostalgic retreat is a space for relaxing, thinking, reading and being inspired. It will be very colourful and filled with plant pots and vintage gardening books.
* ‘A Passementerie Passion’ designed by Annabel Lewis of VV Rouleaux Described as "a blaze of colour and bedecked with every kind of ribbon and trim". Garden furniture is used indoors with hanging baskets turned into chandeliers.
* ‘Wild at Heart at Home’ designed by Nikki Tibbles Look out for comfortable armchairs, a woodburning stove, rugs, shelves of books and vases of roses. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Mushroom shed

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:54:00 +0000

Fancy working in a toadstool? One of the most intriguing garden shed structures at Grand Designs this year, the LOL from Lancashire based Outdoor Pods. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday posts are sponsored by 3rdSpace modular garden rooms.
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Francis Wheen's shed disaster

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:32:00 +0000

Biographer, essayist and Private Eye deputy editor Francis Wheen suffered what all shedworkers dread last month, the total destruction of his (two-storey) timber shed by fire, pictured above. In addition to the garden office's demise, the flames also took with them his library of books, letters and other papers, including an unfinished novel and CDs. We mentioned it on the Shedworking Facebook page but didn't go into details here because they were so scanty. Filling us in on the detail is a nice piece on openDemocracy by Wheen's partner Julia Jones. It appears that the various electronic equipment may have caused the fire. Here's a snippet:

"The destruction of a library – or a lifetime time’s work (to date) – is a pivotal event. In Francis’s case I’m guessing that Friday 13 April 2012 will be felt as a demarcation point on many different levels – not least his (and our) attitude to paper. The neatly stacked print-out of his novel-in-progress could not ensure its survival any more than the back-up copy on the memory stick in his desk drawer. Cue: sudden family conversion to remote forms of storage. I use Dropbox: He is now emailing every day’s new work to a location somewhere in the vaults of the Google Empire."

More photos of the catastrophe at Do Authors Dream Of Electric Books and here's Wheen on Radio 4 discussing the nightmare himself.

listen to ‘"It merely burned down 5,000 books..." Francis Wheen on the destruction of his shed - The World at One, BBC Radio 4’ on Audioboo

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What are your rules of shedworking?

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:36:00 +0000

Edinburgh-based author and publishing guru Nicola Morgan is just about to join the growing worldwide ranks of shedworkers as she explains on her blog. Before the move, she asked her many readers to come up with new rules for how she should behave in her garden office (as well as actually name it). Suggestions so far have focused on what she shouldn't do/have, including not having internet access, no fizzy drinks, no shoes or chocolate, but having a kettle and fridge. But it got the Shedworking staff thinking about garden office dos and don'ts and we wondered what your suggestions would be? -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:53:00 +0000

One to look out for at the Chelsea Flower Show this year is Patricia 'Aralia' Fox's Show Garden in association with Walworth Garden Farm and sponsored by RBS), Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow.

Patricia describes the garden as "an extension of the working office utilising unused urban rooftop space, turning it into a place of beauty. It is an inspiring, relaxing and yet thought provoking environment, in the midst of a concrete jungle". On the theme of 'technology meets tranquillity', in addition to a herbal tea bar, it will feature various modern technologies such as wi-fi, laptops, smartphones and tablets throughout the garden. "An office doesn’t need to be inside, nor does it need to have four walls," she says. "This is how our workplaces could look in tomorrow’s world - or so we wish!"

Conferences can be held in the lounge area under the weatherproof canopy where there will be a 3m x 3m video/projection screen. All the furniture in the garden - including contemporary hanging chairs - will be made using ‘up-cycled’ plastic materials and the decking will be bamboo.

Follow the progress of the garden at its own blog which is particularly interesting for those of you keen on green roofs.

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Dunster House, the leading UK company for Log Cabins and Garden Offices sponsors Friday posts

Red Maple: shedworkers

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:01:00 +0000

Red Maple - an IT support and solutions provider based in the North East of England - not only supports the concept of mobile working, the firm's team is entirely home-based and the HQ is a garden office. Indeed, so successful has this arrangement been that the company, which has completed IT contracts in London, Dublin and China and specialises in working with SMEs and entrepreneurs is now expanding its workforce.

Speaking from his garden office on Tyneside, Red Maple's founder Mike Proud (pictured above) said: “If you’re going to sell something like mobile working, it makes sense to use it to its full potential – and the actual benefit is visible to the client. With everyone working from home, we can cut out the road miles from commuting to an office, and to a client site. And for those visits to client sites, we’re looking to trial the range of electric vehicles that are now coming out. We’re also working on a deal with a solar panel provider to offer staff discounts to those staff that can use it.

“If we can gain from new technologies and skills, it makes sense to pass that on to businesses within the North East and further afield, as well as providing employment opportunities.”

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Dunster House, the leading UK company for Log Cabins and Garden Offices sponsors Friday posts

Nuts and bolts: fitting out your garden office

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Thu, 10 May 2012 10:20:00 +0000

Continuing our regularly irregular look at various bits and bobs of shedworking, today we're looking at the importance of garden office interior decor. While more and more people are embracing the shedworking lifestyle and using it to work from to set up their own businesses, staring at the same four walls day in day out can be rather boring so make sure you spruce the area up, just as you would do with your house.

How you decorate the interior is up to you (and we'd strongly recommend the book Shed Chic by Sally Coulthard as inspiration), but one possibility is to bring the greenery indoors. So consider co-ordinating your space with the outside environment, perhaps painting it green and bringing the vegetation inside with colourful plant pots and flowers. We've also seen nice examples of garden offices which have fairly straightforward traditional office furniture, but are then finished off with garden benches, patio chairs and indeed hammocks to add a bit of variety.

Obviously there are lots of places to buy these things but one that we like the look of is Trueshopping. Pictured above is an eDEN Garden Room which very much incorporates the horticultural ethic in its build. If you've got any decorating tips, please do leave a comment.

Garden offices and Shed of the Year 2012 (video)

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Wed, 09 May 2012 09:07:00 +0000

To help publicise Shed of the Year 2012, I recently took part in a special event organised by event sponsors Cuprinol to encourage people to take part in the increasingly popular annual competition. And here's the video. If you haven't entered your garden office or other shedlike atmosphere yet, get your skates on as entries close on May 20. Click here to enter. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

House Arc (video)

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Tue, 08 May 2012 08:28:00 +0000

A modular bike parking system is the inspiration for this remarkable shedlike atmosphere from Bellomo Architects. The flatpack House Arc is built around a series of bent steel tubes, measures 8’ x 12’ and claims to be entirely off-gridable and designed for emergency housing in disaster areas as well as compact work and live space. On the outside, there is polycarbonate sheeting and wood cladding as well as various ecofriendly elements such as rooftop solar power options and a rainwater harvesting system. Architect Joseph Bellomo said: “We designed it to be a kit of parts house that can be assembled quickly–like prefab furniture.” And here's one being built below. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday posts are sponsored by 3rdSpace modular garden rooms.
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BOST ecohouse

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Mon, 07 May 2012 07:45:00 +0000

Bankside Open Spaces Trust has moved into an eco-friendly building called the BOST Ecohouse (designed by Philip Clayden and whiteadamski) from where it will run community gardening, volunteering and parks work, reports hyperlocal news site london-se1.

The EcoHouse in Ayres Street has a green roof and a pleasantly curved wooden structure which Clayden described as a "woolly jumper" (he also called it "high-tech and not just a shed" but we'll let him off that "just" because it's so attractive). -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Floating garden office

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Sat, 05 May 2012 10:41:00 +0000

Eco Floating Homes design and manufacture what they call "modern water dwellings". Who's for a floating garden office? More info here. ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Sam Martin on 'manspaces' (video)

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:37:00 +0000

While we very much believe that shedworking is a way of working that is ideal for both women and men, it's true that many people do (still) think about shedlike atmospheres as 'manspaces'. Here's Sam Martin, author of Manspace: A Primal Guide to Marking Your Territory, putting the case for back yard/garden spaces. Which we think are for everybody. Including children. But it's still worth a look.

Integrated garden office and shed

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Wed, 02 May 2012 10:01:00 +0000

Lynn Fotheringham and her team at InsideOut Garden Offices and Annexes have been busy in Oxforshire on another example of how a traditional shed can be incorporated into a modern garden office. "A lot of people that contact us ask for an integral shed and are willing to pay "above shed" prices for a streamlined building such as this," she says. "Highly insulated garden office at one end and supershed for bikes and lawnmower at the other. As the client said "the shed door is better quality than our front door"." The people hovering outside are two of their trusty team of joiners. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Teenager's house on wheels

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Tue, 01 May 2012 07:58:00 +0000

Mark Burton from Custom Built Surrey has been hard at work, as he explains... "Our stroppy teenage son informed me that he "needs his space". So, as if by magic, a House on Wheels appeared at the bottom of our 100ft garden within 3 weeks. I will also be driving the house through central London to The Grand Designs Show with the message "All Teenagers Should Have One." You can visit Mark - who builds custom made garden buildings, log cabins, garden offices and workshops - at Grand Designs Live, Stand G360. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Shedworking economy up 25% to £8bn

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 07:57:00 +0000

According to a poll run by Shedworking for supermarket giants Asda, although economic conditions may be challenging for traditional workers, the value to the UK economy of home and shed-based businesses will top £8 billion this year. That's up from just over £6 billion in the same poll in 2010.

The figure reflects the boom in the numbers of homeworkers: the poll of shed/home-based business owners found that the average turnover of home-based businesses has risen by 25% in the last two years. Reflecting this growth, sales of sheds and low-cost office technology and stationery for potential home use have boomed at Asda in the last 12 months, with shed sales up 386%, laptop sales up 86%, printer sales up 45% and stationery sales up 12%.

Asda has recently launched a home business starter kit, including a range of low cost products from stationery to IT equipment to help budding entrepreneurs start a business. A shed, office chair, desk, laptop, printer, ream of paper, pay as you go phone and 50-pack of ballpoint pens can be bought from Asda for less than £500. Nearly four in five (77.8%) of those polled said the lower cost of equipment to run a business were among their main reasons for choosing to start a business from home.

“Many households are taking a go-it-alone approach to business and are reaping the rewards,” said Alex Crowe, Asda’s homeworking specialist. “The low cost of starting up a business means that many households are pursuing the entrepreneurial dream. With the value of the back garden economy reaching an amazing £8 billion, home-based businesses are now lending a whole new meaning to the term ‘home economics’”.

Sixteen percent of those polled said that their turnover had been in the £100-150,000 range in the last twelve months and 7.9% said that their turnover had exceeded £200,000. The poll also revealed
* Nearly a quarter of home-based businesses polled employ more that one person and one in twenty employs more than five.
* Four in five (78.9%) expect to work from home indefinitely.
* Many of the home businesses polled were bullish about the prospects for growth this year, with 13.5% of those polled expecting turnover growth of 20% or more. Only five percent of respondents expected no growth or a decline in sales this year. More than a third (35.1%) expected growth of between five and ten percent this year.

Lower costs, easier childcare and a sense of it being a more modern way of working were among the main reasons cited for working from home.

The sub-£500 home start-up – premises and all the equipment you need to set up your business from Asda for less than £500: 6x4 shed - £129 Desk - £14 Laptop - £249 Printer - £30 Office chair - £19 Ream of paper - £2.38 Pay as you go phone - £12.50 Pack of 50 ballpoint pens - £4.50 Total - £460.38

Pictured above is author and shedworker Neil Gaiman's writing shed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Joanne Harris shows us round her garden office

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:04:00 +0000

A nice guided tour of her writing shed by the bestselling author Joanne Harris. You can read an exclusive interview with her about it and her shedworking lifestyle here. ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Disco shed (video)

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 10:49:00 +0000

Video: Paddy and his disco shed One of our favourite shedworking atmospheres. More details at their site here. -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Dunster House, the leading UK company for Log Cabins and Garden Offices sponsors Fridays posts

Fitting a garden office when there's no access to the garden...

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:38:00 +0000

While erecting a garden office is reasonably straightforward, if there's no easy access to the back garden then things start to get a bit trickier. Maybe it's possible to use a crane, but if not then everything has to come through the house. Here's a recent example of just this from Log Cabins Scotland. The building - a Bertsch Holzbau corner entry cabin and shed combo in 58mm log with pre-painted windows and doors - was fitted in an Edinburgh back garden to which there was no acess other than via the house. This meant everything had to go through the hall, into the bathroom and past the shower screen door. The suppliers had to open and remove the shower room window and pass the whole building through there other than the door frame and windows and foundation which they carried through the house and round 90 degree corners out of the back door.

Songs from the Shed: Robin Grey

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 09:47:00 +0000

If it's raining where you are today, have a break from the damp and listen in to the latest sessions from Shed of the Year winner 2011 Songs from the Shed. Here's a recent one to get you going, Robin Grey performing The Finchley Waltz. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Garden office with shed

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 09:45:00 +0000

We remarked last year on the increase in the number of shedworkers who were also keen to include some traditional shed storage space alongside their garden office. Here's a new example from eDEN Garden Rooms in Hackney, London for a client who wanted to fit both elements into a tight corner at the end of his garden. The result is a triangular garden office incorporating a storage space and featuring concrete panels at the back and inside an integrated cupboard and desk. It has a double glazed door (with security locks) next to a large window with tilt and turn mechanism and a green RAL for the aluminium cladding on the glazing (this colour was also matched to the powder coated aluminium fascias). The garden office is fully insulated and heated by underfloor heating, finished with an overhang and decking, lit by spotlights and protected by security lighting. The garden storage/shed has a door clad in red cedar wood to fit the overall design. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday posts are sponsored by 3rdSpace modular garden rooms.
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St Andrews revolving garden shed

noreply@blogger.com (alex johnson) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 07:51:00 +0000

What better way to celebrate St George's Day today than with this photo of a revolving garden office a la George Bernard Shaw spotted this morning by Hamish Thompson in the grounds of the Old Hospice, St Leonard's School, St Andrews. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.