Shedding its traditional image
If garden sheds conjure up images of men sneaking out of the house with their pipe, slippers and newspaper to escape ‘the wife’, or you think they are just for storing garden tools, old junk or bikes, think again… garden sheds are the new must-have item for celebrities and young people.

Designer sheds
It's true. Zoe Ball, television presenter and DJ, has one - her ‘pink-painted girly retreat’. She says she ‘went for a cosy look, but with lushness too, all whites and soft dusky pinks, mirrored side tables and beautiful pale pink silk curtains with embroidered cream flowers’. Designers Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan created designer sheds at this year’s Ideal Home Show, which celebrate their Scottish roots with a contemporary spin on a hunting lodge theme. And celebrity chef James Martin has turned his shed into a designer kitchen.

Urban retreat
Shedhead Vicky, 19, from Manchester, has had a shed built to create a ‘home from home’. She says, her shed is ‘painted dark brown and has a little porch with spindles, a laminate floor, shelves where she puts her TV, DVD player, toaster, kettle, lamp and mini fridge and a two-seater settee’. As Vicky shares a room with her sister, she decided she needed somewhere to go to if she wanted some privacy.

Shed facts and figures
In the UK we spend around £90 million a year on sheds. They can add up to five per cent to the value of a property, usually don’t need planning permission and around ten million homes are reputed to have one. They don’t need to cost very much either – sheds can be purchased for as little as £99.

Shed space ideas
With increased interest in architectural and interior design, and perhaps inspired by television makeover programmes, people can see the potential for sheds to create an additional living space which can be put to any number of uses - meditation room, miniature spa, gym, cinema, games room, office, studio and even a bar.

So if you want somewhere to relax and chill out why not create your own hideaway?

Connie
April 2007

Fact file:
The Anglo-Saxon name for a shed is scead, which means shade

Inventor Trevor Baylis came up with the prototype of his famous clockwork radio in his shed

Several writers have written their bestseller in their garden shed:

Philip Pullman wrote his trilogy His darkest materials in his garden shed

Louis de Bernières wrote Captain Corelli’s Mandolin in his wooden summer house in Norfolk

and the Wallace and Gromit adventures were written by Bob Baker in his Gloucestershire shed

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