Chiswick Camouflage Shed

When you are known on the interwebs as someone who likes the odd shed or two it’s great to get a referral from a acquaintance of an acquaintance, saying they know has this great shed, and when you get to the source it’s wonderful to see the creative side of sheddies.

Zoe Hewett is one of those creative lot.

The ‘Chiswick Camouflage’ Shed was actually a private commission for clients who had already been very pleased with items of furniture that I had reconditioned for them.

With my former career in scenic art & design (i’m now an interior designer/ decorator), they were very trusting and gave me quite a free reign to transform their brand new shed, because although it’s smart, it wasn’t inspirational.

They only asked me to do something to break it up in the line of vision, so it wasn’t a big box of wood anymore.

I found inspiration looking at a small mass-produced canvas that had been collaged with almost identical leaves, uniformly positioned in rows, and that was the starting point for the idea for camouflage. I researched leaf
shapes to use instead of recreating a military pattern, as that would have had a very different connotation, and painted it using Cuprinol woodstain.

I was pleasantly surprised by the range of colours they have available now, which is great as would have been 3 times the price to do in weathershield paint.

Now it disappears into the garden from a distance, and the owners were thrilled with it.

Want to live in a shed for £150 a week in Newham, London

Wonder what planning they have anyway the newham recorder reports

A SHED at the bottom of the garden is traditionally the refuge for the brow-beaten husband or home to tins of unwanted paint.

But a Manor Park homeowner has rebranded his large shed, left, as a “studio flat”…and it is for rent at a princely £150 per week.

The 6m by 4m wooden structure, complete with newly-fitted bathroom, is on a plot of land fenced off from the main house in Gladding Road.

It is being promoted as an ideal home for commuters, as it just a few minutes’ walk from the station.

Save our school shed – the planners want to tear it down

This story in today’s Trumpet of Truth (South Wales Echo) is about a nursery school in Penarth, South Wales, who use the cabin as an extra classroom for the tots are being told to tear it down by Vale of Glamorgan Council.

Photo :Media Wales / Picture by Andrew Davies

CHILDREN have launched a campaign to save their nursery’s play cabin after planners ordered it to be torn down.

The wooden cabin, in the grounds of St Aubin nursery in Archer Road, Penarth, was built last July.

Nursery owner Sue Evans claims she was told at the time that the structure did not require planning approval. It has been used as an outdoor classroom ever since.

But Vale of Glamorgan council planners have now decided the cabin breaches conservation area planning rules and will have to be demolished.

Jodie Evans, a manager at the nursery, said there was confusion over when the nursery was included in the conservation area. But she said that, in any event, the cabin was not obtrusive and had not sparked any complaints, except from the planners.

“The classroom plays a crucial role in the children’s learning and is in line with the Welsh Assembly Government’s foundation phase of education which encourages outdoor learning,” she said.

“Yet we have been told to take it down because the wood does not match the red brick of the nursery building and is therefore out of character in the conservation area. It’s hard to see what the problem is when you consider that it’s built on the site of our former, smaller cabin.”

Good news for mensheds downunder

ABC reports

I wish who ever wins the election here today in the UK, would have more policy’s on mensheds and other organisations for men. anyway the Ozzie are way ahead.

The Federal Government has launched Australia’s first national male health policy, appropriately at a men’s shed at Whittlesea in Victoria.

The policy provides nearly $17 million, to set up men’s sheds, fund studies on social and economic factors affecting men’s health, and ecourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men to become more involved in their families’ lives.

Minister for Indigenous, Rural and Regional Health, Warren Snowdon, says Australian men have had the “she’ll be right” attitude for too long.

For more info on MenSheds

Sir David Attenborough in Scott’s Hut

BBC director Dan Rees, has posted a picture on Twitter of legendary broadcaster and naturalist

Image from Dan Rees

Sir David Attenborough in Scott’s Hut. He spoke movingly of how powerful the weight of history is inside

There is a team of people there restoring the hut

Photo from Dan Ress http://twitter.com/bbcexplorer_dr/status/7743668113

The team restoring Scott’s Hut made David Attenborough and all the team very welcome. Mt Erebus volcano is behind.

We wish them well, maybe it could be Hut of the year 2010 on readersheds!!