Recently in Sheds Category

I had a great family weekend! A trip to London zoo (superb), a great shared Church lunch to say a sad but fun farewell to our Rector as he heads for pastures new; and importantly, lots of time fettling in the garden.

The results of the fettling being that the new den for my daughter is 75% complete and looking very cool (in a 'Heath Robinson' sort of a way given the random door and windows).

This is the first elevated shed den I have built and I'm quite pleased with the result ........ maybe upward expansion at the 'national shed museum' is the way to go.
There is a large recycled element to the construction with discarded windows, cupboard doors and front doors forming a major part of the fabric. I have an old set of wooden stepladders to create a staircase up to the door, but am currently trying to think of a way of making some stained glass window for the triangles fore and aft under the roof.

The other thing that is vexing me is that I seemed to have failed to pass on the Creosote loving gene to my daughter, thus I will have to employ one of these new fangled soppy ineffectual cosmetic wood coatings with names like Timberlove or Woodycare!

Someone at Church suggested I have an 'open shed' afternoon! I'm liking the idea :-)

Having written about youth ministry for five years, has there ever been a business deal approach from a major supplier of youth work resources?
There has not!
Has the blog ever generated enquiries from marketing agencies asking about web presence for their client?
Nope!

However when it comes to sheds (a mere aside on the blog) it's a different story. I was amused and chuffed, no ... chuffed and amused yesterday to be approached by a major shed supplier with the offer of a deal. *laughing* It's true! Funny old world eh

Yours sincerely

Ian Macdonald
(shed engineer and wood-treatment consultant)

Highly successful evening as I finished cutting the joints into the bearers and assembled them into the completed frame. My daughter was not convinced that we were, as I believed, having fun lifting the pieces into place in the pouring rain.

I've now got to build the pillars into the swamp that will support the frame and decking. The rain is actually quite useful as at any given moment I can tell instantly whether the intended direction of drainage is working or not without the need to mess around with a spirit-level.

The plan is for it to be job-done by Sunday ... and we can thus move into our outdoor summer .... I just need to find the 'Beach boys' CD and the sun-lounger. (eek, just looked at the above picture; does that fence seriously need creosoting or what!)

Sheds for living in, what's not to love? Although it would be interesting to see whether I then felt compelled to build a small house in the Garden as a place to retreat and to fettle.

Installed as a shed but self-relocating for a beach hut role. Joking aside though, my sympathy to the couple affected. Waking up and finding one's shed gone is the stuff (in my mind) of nightmares.

Story here

I'm normally a purist in terms of shed materials, wood every time! I do however recognize that railway goods carriages make fantastic sheds and they contain a fair amount of metal. The golden age for re-cycled railway sheds was presumably when Beeching killed off a fair chunk of the UK rail network. So, with the global economic crisis and environmental issues bringing the price of second hand aircraft down, this has to be the equivalent piece of imaginative re-use. A little lacking in wood maybe BUT a shed with a first class section AND if anyone breaks in, a Black box recorder to tell you who!

What's not to like?

Another Christmas shed, It's a great picture but I can only link to it because of copyright issues.

A shed shaped advent calender, what's not to love eh?

I love what 'Beyond' are doing in Brighton this year, they are running a day by day advent calender using beach huts! And as beach huts are really sheds .......... I'm adding this to the Christmas sheds series :-)

The web site of Beyond is here with pictures of each of the huts (so far) and here is the BBC South piece on the installations.

The Bible is not very specific about the building Jesus was born in. It is very clear that geographically it was Bethlehem, however the specific details after that are only where it wasn't, that is, "not in the Inn" (no room). Jesus was laid in a manger, we're told, leading to the Stable or Cave scenarios that were the staple of Christmas cards before they had the Simpsons and/or Father Christmas on.

My point being, there is nothing in the text to suggest that Jesus wasn't born in a shed, while textually very much allowing for the possibility! This thesis being further reinforced by the carol writers, "Once in Royal David's city stood a lowly cattle shed"

So, in the run up to Christmas I plan to post pictures of Sheds that connect in with a Christmas theme! (Contributions welcome).

(ht to the readershed website)

I'm blogging from my shed whilst enjoying a rather fine day off! And as such I thought this might be a good opportunity to shed some light on the shed situation.

I've been tied to indoors projects recently and for those who were amused by the epic saga of the cupboard doors, you'll will be pleased to know they are finished! A twenty minute job that morphed into a full-on construction project and, three weeks later, is finally complete, YAY!
This has definitely confirmed to me that I prefer outdoor carpentry to indoor woodwork, oh and I rate creosote* way above white gloss paint. *shudder*

On the shed front I am collecting wood for a new project. I hope to begin building a long shed soon that will be 3ft by 16ft, specifically as a Kayak store. I've also been asked to design a triangular shed for a friend to fit a particular section of his garden .... I like the idea of this and am very excited about this potential, "great pyramid of Bicester!"

In terms of my workshop, I'm trying to locate an old woodburning stove which would be a great addition to the, already high, levels of mellowness herein.

I've also been sent some essential reading by a friend (thanks). I enjoyed Shed Men enormously and now have the sequel, Men and Sheds! Nice.

*Sadly I've slipped down to number 17 on Google for Creosote substitute, the heady days when the search engine considered me the world expert on this particular wood treatment have long passed.

As both of the regular youthblog readers are away on the Isle of Wight at the moment (completely independently I should add) I am disinclined to pen much. But in case anyone stumbled blindly onto the site looking for 'Transvison Vamp' or information on Ecclesiology in a post Christendom paradigm, then here at least by way of compensation for the lack of useful stuff, is something that made me smile:

You can't have your cake and eat it, they say
BUT you can, it appears, have your shed and drive it!