Sheds

[Scully]

There are many skilful and talented individuals on this forum to whom this applies also, but I am always fascinated by the little cottage industries ( often started out as nothing more than hobbies ) that people get up to in their sheds and or workshops, that to a larger extent pass by unnoticed by the general public at large.

In my home town I lived no more than a stones throw away from a lad who by day was an electrician ( now a farmer ) but at weekends consistently competed at the top level of sidecar racing, including the TT, who used to tune his own engines in his garage. On the next street from him is a lad whom I used to take with me whenever I was buying a vehicle, who by day was a fitter but packed it in to concentrate on his ( now paying ) hobby of rebuilding and converting VW camper vans, in his garage behind his house ( he’s used to replace the original engines with a Subaru engine )  one of which was featured in a specialist magazine. 
Another bloke I always thought of as retired as I use to see him having coffee at all times of day, turns out to be a superbly skilled cabinet maker, supplying bespoke pieces to people all over the country, from his garage under his house. 
Yet another ( unfortunately died shorty after emigrating to New Zealand ) had his garage kitted out and built bike engines in it for one of the big racing teams. 
Yet another makes buck-toothed rakes which sell all over the world. People travel from all over to visit his little workshop at the bottom of the Fells in the Eden Valley, and go home with a rake. In my youth I used to fell trees, some of which I delivered to his workshop. 
Another restores and builds tractors and Landrovers, and the bloke who built my old Landrover salvaged a chassis from the bottom of a Lake District quarry, which he eventually rebuilt into a Sentinel steam wagon. 
Another friend of mine works quietly at an easel most days, where he paints portraits of the aristocracy, who pay him vast sums of money to do so. Really. He painted two portraits of Ken Dodd; one in his Diddy Men outfit, which he still has as Doddy only bought one. 
Yet another only 100 yards away is a retired haulage contractor who has an impressive collection of classic vehicles, including a stunning Moggy Thou’ van and a GMC V8 pickup truck from the late 1950’s or 1960’s. He does much of the restoration work himself and hires them out as wedding vehicles, all from his garage behind his house. 
A former gamekeeper I know who lost his job through an illness, started making sculpture from stainless steel cutlery, and bird boxes in his shed at the bottom of his garden, just to keep himself busy, and now does it for a living, and quite a good living if his holidays are anything to go by. 

Another at the end of the village made a structural box for someone who wanted to send something abroad, and now has a little cottage industry going. 
I even know a bloke who for a living is a pharmacist if I recall, but is so obsessed about sheds that he wrote a book about them, and was a major contributor to the development and publishing of the Haynes Manual of Sheds! He started it at weekends, from his shed. 🙂
My OH, who is a waitress, designed gift paper and greetings cards for companies such as Liberty of London, Paperchase and WHSmith, from a little studio which we now share. She is the most unassuming and modest person I know, and is also a highly skilled seamstress who creates and makes costumes for puppets. 

Another old boy makes and restocks rifles and shotguns from a tiny ( perhaps three metres square ) workshop which was originally the vestibule to the front of his modest bungalow! 
Bit of a ramble admittedly, but I find it fascinating to think of all this that goes on behind closed doors, in sheds and workshops. 
 

[GingerCat]

Next door makes really rather nice dog beds in her shed. She left an airline and started her own business. Quite impressed how she's grown it. She's struggling to keep up with demand at the minute. Not help by me having 4 of them and currently thinking about one for the cat. 

[ditchman]

is this "shed thing"......purely a British thing..............are there other countries of "shedsters"  ?

[London Best]

Great post, Scully, really interesting.

[JTaylor91]

11 minutes ago, GingerCat said:

Next door makes really rather nice dog beds in her shed. She left an airline and started her own business. Quite impressed how she's grown it. She's struggling to keep up with demand at the minute. Not help by me having 4 of them and currently thinking about one for the cat. 

She’s not called Holly is she? Designed for dogs?

[CharlieT]

Great post.

There is, I think, an upsurge in the number of people doing exactly what you describe. In past times a huge proportion of the working population in such "trade", think of the numbers working in weaving, shoe making, clothing, cutlery, cabinet making and of course the gun trade, to name just a few.

I can see a time, in the not too distant future, that such gainful employment will be common place.

[jonny long shanks]

I've often considered working from home in my shed but unfortunately it's not quite big enough. Any talk of a shed extension is usually declined. My wife is in charge of planning permission 🙄 it will just have stay remain a refuge for now. 

[figgy]

1 hour ago, ditchman said:

is this "shed thing"......purely a British thing..............are there other countries of "shedsters"  ?

The Norwegians and Swedes are  nations of tinkerers too.  

Scilly you seem to live among more shed cottage industry than anyone else I've heard of. Very lucky of you to have such skills on your doorstep.

I tinker with all manner of things in my garage, my shed is for stage to get the gardening and paint tins out of the garage.

[islandgun]

I was thinking about the Medina in Morocco every doorway has someone making stuff, leather, metalwork, carpets, etc etc. heres my shed where i try and a bit of willow work

 

[Scully]

30 minutes ago, figgy said:

The Norwegians and Swedes are  nations of tinkerers too.  

Scilly you seem to live among more shed cottage industry than anyone else I've heard of. Very lucky of you to have such skills on your doorstep.

I tinker with all manner of things in my garage, my shed is for stage to get the gardening and paint tins out of the garage.

Yes, I was amazed to discover so many people working from their sheds, and I wasn’t really looking. I do get about a lot to be honest, as part of my work, and meet all manner of interesting people. 
As Charlie T says, I can see this happening more and more, hopefully. 
There is a bloke I know in a small village who restores antiques from his workshop at the bottom of his garden; I love visiting him as the smell of his workshop is magnificent and intoxicating. He says the only time he notices it is when he first goes in after being away for some time, like a holiday to his parents in Italy. 
Two brothers do all my framing from a workshop which used to be the scullery of the house of one of them, in a small village about 15 mile from me, one of whom also repairs and restores church tower clocks, and is at his happiest abseiling down steeples! Not exactly a workshop scenario, but he does bring some back to be gilded etc. 

[Scully]

6 minutes ago, islandgun said:

I was thinking about the Medina in Morocco every doorway has someone making stuff, leather, metalwork, carpets, etc etc. heres my shed where i try and a bit of willow work

 

Looks grand. In my old shed I had bundles of blackthorn and hazel hanging from the roof, waiting to be made into thumb sticks etc.
I had built footings for a large monopitch shed I intended to build from I-beams at the bottom of my garden, but it never happened as my ex and me split up, and now I no longer have a shed, but have a studio. 
I think every person should have a little somewhere, where they can get away from it all for a while, to chill out and relax, and do whatever it is they want to do. 

[treetree]

I mainly hide from my wife in my shed

[Scully]

10 minutes ago, treetree said:

I mainly hide from my wife in my shed

😂

I more or less intended to live in mine; I certainly intended to sleep in it. 

[islandgun]

Just now, Scully said:

😂

I more or less intended to live in mine; I certainly intended to sleep in it. 

I have thought about buying more bales and making a bed.😄   There is something special about the smell of barley straw and drying willows,  I do spend a fair bit of time down there in the winter, usually with the tilly lamp hissing.  

A question for the old Norfolk/Fen  boys.. Does anyone have any pictures or info on the willow eel traps as used down that way in the past, i would like to have a go at making one 

[The Heron]

Any one with a wife / girlfriend needs a shed. 

[amateur]

39 minutes ago, The Heron said:

Any one with a wife / girlfriend needs a shed. 

How true, how very true

[bavarianbrit]

My shed, almost finished now I am only 70 y/o. The walls are all 12 inch insulated with free to me wood particle board as used in passive houses from the factory in the next village. They cut it then waste trillions of bits as it is cheaper for them to cut a new sheet up and dump the costs on the customer.

It was a  24 inch thick stone built pig sty in a previous life.

[Scully]

Looks great, I can almost smell it! 👍

[bumpy22]

48 minutes ago, bavarianbrit said:

My shed, almost finished now I am only 70 y/o. The walls are all 12 inch insulated with free to me wood particle board as used in passive houses from the factory in the next village. They cut it then waste trillions of bits as it is cheaper for them to cut a new sheet up and dump the costs on the customer.

It was a  24 inch thick stone built pig sty in a previous life.

Brilliant. I bet time flies in there. I know a gunsmith that has a workshop very similar to that

[hawkeye]

46 minutes ago, Scully said:

Looks great, I can almost smell it! 👍

Thats the pigs 😷

[ditchman]

god knows what my shed smells of............i will have a sniff next time and report back........

[Old farrier]

Built a few things in my shed 

[Scully]

That’s exactly the kind of thing I meant! 👍

[GingerCat]

6 hours ago, JTaylor91 said:

She’s not called Holly is she? Designed for dogs?

She is

[Vince Green]

I know somebody who makes papier mache coffins, she started it off as a bit of a joke but at £400 a time its turned into a bit of an earner,