Shed of the year 2024, Sponsored by 
Its well insulated, well equipped and well sited. Its a sanctuary away from the house at the bottom of the garden in the company of squirrels and birds and is the perfect office environment to work in. It has mains power and therefore has a great music system, and a fridge. By day its an office but at weekends its the perfect BBQ annexe!
With the impending birth of our second son and my subsequent eviction from the spare bedroom I quickly needed to build a garden office to continue working from. I bought a self assembly log cabin from the internet (Specifically a Dunster House Avon 400 with 45mm walls, 28mm DG windows, Euro locks and roof shingles). I used a local builder to provide a single block footing/plinth for it to sit on. It took myself and my father-in-law two days to erect it but that included staining every log as we went along to guarantee complete coverage between the tongues and grooves. I used a local electrician to fit a consumer unit, lights and eight double sockets but I dug the 600mm deep trench back to the house myself. (And I snapped a forged steel trenching shovel in the process!) To convert this into an all year round office I added 200mm mineral wool insulation between the 150mm purlins then added a plasterboard ceiling. For the walls I fitted 50mm T&G insulation boards then finished again with plasterboard. This meant that I had to re-trim (or rather extend) the internal window and door frames to finish flush with the new thicker walls. The addition of insulation boards meant also that I had to plan where my shelf fixings would be and add wooden battens in lieu of insulation in advance. In the winter I use a small panel heater for approx 20 mins first thing the morning and then it stays warm for the rest of the day. Now having been working from my shed for just over a year I am sure we made the right decision to spend approximately £5k to complete this project rather than build an extension or move home. I fully recommend this solution to anyone in the same predicament.
