Britain has produced some of the world’smost famous pioneers from engineers to scientists, and adventurers to artists and to celebrate achievements made through these industrious and brave souls Garden Buildings Direct has given the name of Pioneer to the new range of BillyOh log cabins.

BillyOh Pioneer Raleigh Log Cabin

Garden Buildings Direct has developed it’s catalogue of leisure buildings with the introduction of two new products in the 28mm interlocking board range.  Firstly we have the BillyOh Pioneer Raleigh Log Cabin, which is a new design reminiscent of a Swiss chalet, but with the trademark BillyOh doors and windows finishing off the styling.

BillyOh Pioneer Darwin Log Cabin

Secondly we have the BillyOh Pioneer Darwin Log Cabin, another 28mm board log cabin, which is one of our big ones at 16' 4" x 17' 11" and it has eight windows as well as the usual double doors.  This building allows for more natural light to flood in to it than any other log cabin and truly is evolutionary.  The verandah adds an extra dimension to the building to give it even more versatility and class and which also contributes, along with the roof design, to giving this building an Australian homestead look.

The Pioneer range has been developed from the BillyOh Frontier and BillyOh Pathfinder log cabin ranges that Garden Buildings Direct has become famous for and the quality and craftsmanship continues in to this new line of luxury, but affordable, garden leisure buildings.

Why not take a closer look by visiting the log cabin’s individual product pages for a detailed look at these two new pioneer inspired log cabins.

Click here for product details on the BillyOh Pioneer Raleigh Log Cabin: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Log-Cabins/BillyOh-Pioneer-Raleigh-Log-Cabin   

Click here for

product details on the BillyOh Pioneer Darwin Log Cabin: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Log-Cabins/BillyOh-Pioneer-Darwin-Log-Cabin

Can it be done, a workshop for under £500*?  If you are thinking of tinkering in your garden shed on a grander scale than is possible now, as your shed is full of lawn mower and broken barbecue and not to mention the kids paddling pool that only saw the outside world twice this year, and you have only a limit amount of money to accomplish this with, then a BillyOh Overlap Workshop from Garden Buildings Direct could be the answer you are looking for.

Starting at 10’ x 10’ at a stitch under the £500* threshold the BillyOh Overlap Workshop is the entry workshop in this range that reaches up to 10’ x 25’.  The 10’ x 10’ is a very nice space and gives ample room for storage, shelving and work benches to develop your hobby or grow your workshop tinkering. 

Along with the double doors, robust framing and the light airy feel that you get from the large number of windows (the 10’ x 10’ has eight of them, two at the front), the BillyOh ten year warranty and free* UK mainland home delivery can only add to the amazing qualities of these wooden workshops.

So if you have outgrown your shed and you are looking for a workshop to expand into then visit here for this exciting Garden Buildings Direct wooden building: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Wooden-Sheds/BillyOh-Overlap-Workshop

*Price correct at time of blogging.

How can you complain about the knots in wood? Well someone did recently, and it has prompted me to write a little piece about the characteristics of wood.

It seems that this guy wanted the wood in his garden building to be clean of lines, and knots. I can understand this to a certain extent, but when your building is made from European Softwood you are going to get knots. With a thickness of no less than 19mm, in the boards that make up the log cabins, there is no chance of the little bug**ers falling out and leaving drafty holes, so this could not have been the issue.

Then I thought of how a customer would treat a building with no knots and natural lines in the wood to protect it. Surely the building would still need to be coated in a suitable stain or wood preserver, which would help to disguise the appearance of these beautiful natural features?

How can you expect wood to be one hundred percent free of what makes wood so beautiful in the first place. Of course you can buy expensive types of wood that have fewer of this distinguishing marks, but then it would be hard wood and this would be extremely expensive.

If someone wanted such a clean, not sure if this building is made of wood, look then they may not have considered the natural characteristics of wood at all. For instance in the winter wood has a tendency to expand as the moisture trapped within it reacts to the colder temperatures. This then expands the links between the boards of any garden building.

When summer comes around the affects of the higher temperatures make the wood shrink back again. This then affects the contact points of the boards and movement can then occur. Over time this becomes more obvious and spacing may occur between boards making them slightly loose. This is totally natural and very little can be done about it.

Wood also moves in a more lateral way and warping or bending of the timbers can occur. Again this is completely natural, but the interlocking construction technique of log cabin building should minimise these two specific weathering effects as the overall weight of the building presses down on all of the boards giving a strong resistance to movement.

The best thing about wood’s natural characteristics is the fact that it blends an obviously man made structure into the surrounding of your garden so well. Even painted, as long as it isn’t in garish colours and patterns, the building will still sit well in the natural colours and textures of a garden. The grain and the shapes they make on the surface of the cut timbers take away from the straight lines of the artificial materials of some buildings.

Wood is a sustainable building material so the environmental impact of using it can be controlled and lessened and even bettered by the careful management of forests used for timber.

So... why no knots? I don’t understand, because the beautiful aesthetically, natural textures and look of wood appeals to us all. Unless you are making a statement or have a specific reason you wouldn’t put a plastic shed in your green leaved garden, would you or a metal one next to your lawn? I could be wrong of course, but I’ve never seen someone rush out to replace the wooden beams in their ceiling with steel or concrete ones when renovating their home.

So reconsider, my good man, and celebrate the beauty of wood and all of its natural characteristics.

For further information and to view a range of log cabins click here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Log-Cabins

There is also a Log Cabin Buyers Guide to take a deeper look in to this type of garden building here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Article/log-cabin-buying-guide

I’ve always struggled with the concept of gyms. Obviously they are there to help you get fit and lose weight, but fundamentally they are there to make money from us unfortunate people who like cake too much.

I’ve been to a gym, i’ve been a member of a gym. I did get fitter and the weight had started to slide away and, dare I say, I might have even started to tone up – even build muscle. And for my brief time at the gym, once I had gotten over my embarrassment of looking like a wimp in a room full of exercise fanatics, I had started to enjoy going.

Then after a year I stopped going and stopped being a member. Mainly because it cost me a lot of money and I had to book my time and drive too far to get to it. My motivation was not strong enough and my ever emptying bank balance was also informing my opinion that it might not be a great idea to keep going.

However, if I had the facility to train at home and knew that once I had paid for my gym equipment then I could go whenever I wanted and train for however long I wanted without being asked to move on to the next piece of machinery by an intimidating beef-cake of a guy, I might be persuaded to take it up again. After all my jeans are getting a bit tight.

Placing a log cabin in my garden would create the perfect environment for my Log Cabin home gym as I have no spare rooms and I don’t think that the floor would hold the equipment anyway. I’d be able to go at least twice a day, if I desired, and use only the gym equipment I needed to use and after the initial payment I would never have to pay gym membership again.

An added bonus would be the day light and fresh air that I would be able to take advantage of, which I never received when I drove ten miles to the gym twice a week, to help me train longer and more efficiently.

I thought about putting in a plasma screen and a surround sound system for music videos to watch whilst training, a fridge and maybe even a shower, if I could work it in, and I’d be right at home.

For further information and to view a range of log cabins click here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Log-Cabins

Space is of a premium in the modern world, space and time and with the world creaking to breaking point below our feet we have started to change the way that we live our day-to-day working lives.

With the threat of pay as you drive tax looming up on us, getting to and from work will become more of an expensive option and with spiralling fuel prices we may all be soon looking at ways of doing more of our office work from home.

This may not be a bad thing as; ‘...the Home Office Computing Magazine has conducted a study and found out that 96-98% of people who work from home are happier than they were when they worked at an office. And every single one of those business owners said that he/she recommends this lifestyle to others.‘*

The main issue for most of us, if we could work from home, is the distraction of all the things that are there that we keep separate from our working day, such as the TV, games stations, our pets and other things that signify that we can relax and forget about our office life completely when we get home from work.

First of all you have to get over the novelty of working from home and continue to separate your working duties from your home life. This is much easier if you have a designated area to work from. A spare bedroom is normally the first place that people think of when considering working from home.

However, you are still losing a room and when Great Aunt Mildred comes to stay and your office is closed down you once more have to make the hike back to your real office to get on with your day-to-day employed role.

A real solution is to create a space where you can work that takes you a short way from your house and it’s distractions and Great Aunt Mildred, a space that allows you the comfort of your home and its close proximity for amenities and a space that removes the problem of driving to work and all of it’s associated costs and stresses.

By utilising your garden and constructing a Log Cabin home office you will achieve this separation and improve your productivity and improve your health. You’ll even get away from Janice the annoying new girl in HR that keeps bugging you and because the log cabin is situated in the garden you will benefit from the natural daylight and fresh air that often fails to penetrate in to the spare bedroom that you may have previously considered using.

In the end the log cabin home office is the real solution for working from home and you get to decorate it and transfer all of the things in to it to make it an even more friendly and inviting working environment, that you want.

You’ll be able to put more effort in to your work in less time than if you were in a busy office where, generally, there are even more distractions than at home. You may find that you work so well from your log cabin that your boss promotes you for your improved hard work, although we cannot guarantee this.

For further information and to view a range of log cabins click here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Log-Cabins

*Taken from: http://www.articlesbase.com/home-business-articles/increase-personal-productivity-by-working-from-home-office...

The whole world has gone crazy for the environment and so it should. This is our planet and we’ve spent far too long ruining it, which has to change. So the idea of trying to run a manufacturing and garden building distribution company in an environmentally friendly way, or at least as environmentally friendly way as we can, doesn’t take much thinking about as there are plenty of ways in which us humble garden building creators can help to minimise our impact on the environment.

All of our wooden garden building products are made from timber from sustainable forests, which are managed and maintained to perpetuate the supply without compromising the forests that it comes from for a start and not only do we use sustainable timber, but we make sure that nothing goes to waste.

As our buildings range in size and shape from small wooden storage solutions, playhouses, wooden sheds, and log cabins, and timber comes in specific lengths there are occasions when timbers are cut to the precise measurements for a building leaving off-cuts that another manufacturer would just discarded. We, however, take these off-cuts and incorporate them, where we can, in to new buildings or pre-existing buildings that require such lengths of wood. In short we use one piece of timber for two buildings, leaving even less waste.

When chopping and sawing down the timber for the panels and boards of our sectionl buildings and wall boards for our log cabins buildings we accumulate a lot of saw dust. Normally seen as a waste by-product of the manufacturing process we allow it to become a profitable part of our business. The saw dust gets drawn into our extraction system and blown into trailers. It is then graded and dust goes into cat litter manufacture, sawdust “crumbs” go into pet packs for animals such as hamsters and gerbils and the shavings are used in the equestrian market for stables and show rings.

Another aspect of our environmentally friendly manufacturing policy is highlighted by the fact that supermarkets are being forced, by popular descent, to reduce packaging of their products as they are seen as a great contributor to the problem of waste in our country. It’s simple, the less packaging a company uses the less waste is created by the end user. Garden Buildings Direct have always employed the same ethos when it comes to packaging for their garden buildings. Basically, short of a binding strap to hold the sections of the building together in transit and as little polythene as possible for the nuts and screws, we use minimal packaging helping to reduce waste in the same way.

With our mind firmly fixed on helping out our planet we strive to do our bit to reduce our environmental impact. So when you want to purchase a garden building product that you know has not ‘cost the earth’ you can’t do much better than coming to us at Garden Buildings Direct.

The problem I foresee in trying to utilise your log cabin all year round is that in the winter it is cold. No prizes for that one. It does mean, however, that general use of your garden building will start to tail off in late September and over the winter months will stop completely. Who wants to sit in an unheated and very cold building? The answer: no one.

Of course you could fit central heating and invest thousands of pounds in the process of turning your log cabin into a cosy environment that might entice you in once more. But why spend such huge amounts of money in a very improbable manner? Which will reduce the available floor space in your garden building, whilst creating all manner of logistical problems when it comes installing the darn thing. Not to mention the worry of frozen and ruptured pipes in winter. Electric heaters take up less space, but still devalue the look of your cabin and who wants to smell the burning dust that seems to be mandatory with all electric heaters.

A simple and efficient way of heating your log cabin, without spending a fortune and taking up valuable floor space, is under floor heating. Inevitably there will always be a consideration for putting a floor covering in a building such as a log cable, especially if the wife has anything to do with it, such as a rug or even wall to wall carpet. So there isn’t much of a stretch to think about under floor heating that has become a popular solutions for new builds and renovations where similar needs for space saving heating solutions are required.

A 10m square installation kit specifically designed for under wood floor use, such as laminate flooring, will cost you approximately £350*, depending on supplier, with a rating of 150 watts per square metre. As the entire floor acts as the radiator the heat is evenly distributed and therefore becomes more cost effective. This will give out plenty of warmth under your feet for the majority of the Garden Buildings Direct’s log cabins.

*Price correct at time of publishing.

According to those in the know in the industry, and let’s face it being the U.K.’s leading manufacturer we are one of them, we are facing a continued rise in timber prices. Sources close to us and our own balance sheet have shown that the price of timber is on the same high level as it was twenty five years ago and are to rise very soon.

A contributing factor in the rise of the cost of timber now is the increasing logging and transportation costs, which end up being passed on to the consumer with higher prices for wooden buildings.

An additional problem is the lack of timber coming out of mainland Europe with a huge demand coming from Russia making the already high demand for product, here at home, increasingly unfulfilled and therefore a price hike is inevitable.

70-80% of wood used in the U.K. is imported and at least 70-80% of this is softwood. If there is already a high demand that is not being satisfied by European timber suppliers the costs will be passed down the supply chain and that means to the customers.

All wood based manufactures are feeling the changes for instance pallet manufactures are being urged to find new ways of cutting the amount of timber they use and find more cost effective ways of continuing their services such as returnable pallets and reconditioning of pallets.

Garden building manufacturers are also taking similar steps and finding innovative ways to keep supplying well priced products at a high quality. But there is a certain inevitability with regards to over all wooden building price rises.

Garden Buildings Direct pride themselves on delivering the best quality garden building products for the lowest price on the internet and although we keep our prices low it is only a matter of time before everyone in the industry will be pushing the prices up. So now is the time to buy your new wooden garden shed, workshop, playhouse or summerhouse. Basically, get it whilst the price is still right.

There are always things in my shed that are always being dragged in and out.

There are logs and bricks and other things that need to be covered and protected from the elements, but I don’t want to store them in my shed.

The simple solution is to protect them with a canopy that extends from the shed wall and stands on two legs from the ground. This is called the BillyOh Bucher Log Store.

The BillyOh Bucher Log Store from Garden Buildings Direct is an ideal solution for those with an open fire and need an outdoor area to store logs. Its size allows it to be conveniently placed against an outside wall for you new garden shed or workshop and keep log storage contained, organised and dry.

For a full description of the The BillyOh Bucher Log Store click here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Wooden-Storage/BillyOh-Bucher-Log-Store

There is no getting away from it Autumn is here and that means the central heating has been turned back on and all the spiders are on the march. This then means that my wife starts screaming and the house ends up in a state of chaos. I collect the spiders and throw them outside only for them to return when my wife’s back it turned.

This also means that log fires are starting to crackle more often than not and houses are filling with smoke from green wood that hasn’t dried out properly. My Dad always taught me to have a few logs by the fire drying for the next night. Great advice I think and the spiders in the bark love the warmth too, until they get toasted. The smoke in the house is reduced and everyone is happy. Except the crispy spiders.

But as a long term storage solution piles of logs in your house isn’t the answer, apart from the spiders, the smell of drying wet wood doesn’t do much for the senses and can be hazardous to any little ones that may want to inspect the pile.

So you are left with the garden or yard to stock pile your wood and which helps to make your already tired and bedraggled garden look worse than before. A log store would solve the problem, keeping the wood pile tidy and covered from the rain.

Garden Buildings Direct has several log stores to assist in this garden storage solution and one in specific will help to keep your kindling drier than before. The BillyOh Large Log Store with Kindling Shelf has, as the title denotes, a shelf just under the removable lid to put your kindling on. The close proximity to the lid will help to reduce the effects of the weather and keep your fire starting wood ready to use, whilst the log store itself will keep your fire burning through the autumn and winter with it’s large storage capacity.

For a full description of the BillyOh Large Log Store with Kindling Shelf click here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Wooden-Storage/BillyOh-Large-Log-Store-Kindling-Shelf