Recently a television advert promoted the idea of using your garage as a home cinema or maybe your very own pitch side seat for the world cup; albeit through a high definition television screen with surround sound system, comfy lazy boy and beer fridge. The question that popped into my head when I saw this advert was, ‘But where would you put the car?’

Okay I know that most garages these days do not actually house a car and are instead used as the owner’s very own dumping ground full of boxed debit collected and stored during a lifetime of hording. But, what if you could designate a place, a sanctuary you could say, that fulfilled the requirements of our growing stay at home culture as our wallets are tightened and our pound stretched?

I have always wanted a home cinema, I mean a real cinematic environment akin to the local multiplex, but without the high ticket prices -anyone seen a 3-D film recently? – the obnoxious younger generation and their inconsiderate behaviour and all the other annoying points that make cinema going an irritation and not the delightful experience that I recall from my childhood.

So how can we accomplish this? How can we bring the luxury back to our lives? How can we build this dream of going out without leaving the home, to visit that place and it’s comfortable surroundings that give us pleasure through the sporting world or cinematic arts?

All we need is space and an appropriate building to house our little dream. A log cabin would be amazing, but a larger purpose built shed would do just as well. The right size would have to be purchased, but a 10’ x 8’ building would do the job well.  A bigger building would allow for additional uses and a larger range of faux leather furniture to recline in your very own brand new, home entertainment centre.

Decorate the building right, put up some blackout blinds, run some power, hang that wide screen HD LCD Television, place the surround sound speakers in their optimum position, line up your comfy chair and plug in the beer fridge for your foray in to self indulgence as you sip your own choice of proverbial poison and flick on the latest block buster from Hollywood or watch your national football team carve their way in to the sporting history books.       

But first you need a building... http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Log-Cabins

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

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

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.

When I was a child, and it takes me a while to think that far back, we as kids managed to make do with cardboard boxes and bales of straw to make dens out of. Of course health and safety has put an end to all of our shenanigans – not that I play in such a way anymore, I must add.

Now there are issues with safety and whether your child is safe playing outdoors, which is generally an over hyped reaction to a very small actual threat, but children need to play in their little make-believe worlds to grow and maintain their health.

The garden has become the safe haven for playing outdoors and no one really wants an ugly den of boxes and plastic sheeting in their back garden and forget about dragging in a bale of straw to build that fort with. Instead playhouses are very much back on the agenda and as the trend for these buildings grows once more there has also been a response to the development of log cabins within the trade.

Garden Buildings Direct is proud to be introducing new products in to their playhouse range of garden buildings and it’s all about log cabins for kids.

The Mad Dash Child's Log Cabin Playhouse is a cross over from the 19mm Pathfinder Log Cabin range and would look superb snuggled up to one of it’s big brothers in the back garden.

For a full description of the Mad Dash Childs Log Cabin Playhouse click here: Mad Dash Childs Log Cabin Playhouse

Garden Buildings Direct is proud to introduce the BillyOh Pathfinder ‘Woodman’ Log Cabin. Our growing range of log cabins has been complemented by this wonderful new arrival and adds to Garden Buildings Direct’s standing as one of the leading log cabin manufactures in the country.

The Woodman has stunning features, beautifully crafted windows and doors, as well as verandah rails and floor. The two top opening windows filter light into the ample space of the interior adding a heightened sense of space and the roof overhangs adding protection the interior from damaging UV rays and rain.

This building is a perfect single home office space set in a the natural environment of a back garden that can be used to get away from the distractions of a busy household when trying to work from home.

Making the BillyOh Pathfinder ‘Woodman’ Log Cabin a unique building is the craftsmanship that is highlighted by the use of 19mm interlocking boards maximising the structural integrity of this garden building.

Take a look at the product description here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Log-Cabins/BillyOh-Pathfinder-Woodman-Log-Cabin

If, like many, you have found that you need to extend your living space and an extension on your house is not an option or you require a home office, but cannot afford to sacrifice a bedroom, a Log Cabin is the ideal solution.

Log cabins fulfil a whole range of spatially orientated problems, such as a need for that home office, a hobby room, play room or summerhouse, and are a safe, secure and highly stable building to take on these needs when expanding your living space. There are, however, considerations to consider when choosing a building like this:

Why Buy From Garden Buildings Direct?

QUALITY THROUGH EXPERIENCE

With decades of experience our skilled craftsmen have utilised their knowledge to develop a range of high quality log cabins to fit any budget, but without lowering the standard of production or finish.

Quality and price are two contributing factors that most customers would agree form their choice when purchasing any product and when it comes to a substantial buy, such as a log cabin, these two factors are paramount.

Garden Buildings Direct are proud to have some of the most aesthetically pleasing and best designed, log cabins on the market and the price isn’t bad either. We strive to lead the market in these matters, but want to make it clear that there are other factors that you need to consider when finally deciding on which company, and therefore which product, to go for to fulfil your garden building needs.

THE PRICE IS THE PRICE

There are no hidden extra charges when purchasing a Garden Buildings Direct log cabin. We include the V.A.T. and there is no delivery charge to pay in the UK*. You get everything you need to build your cabin so you won’t have to head to the shops for nails and screws.

With Garden Buildings Direct’s log cabins you get a whole lot more than you might think as we strive to make the whole purchasing, delivery and construction experience as simple and straight forward as possible and make Garden Buildings Direct second to none in the industry for log cabins.

Our Log Cabins come with high quality roofing felt and the fixings required to make your building water tight with a highly professional finish and we manufacture and send out high quality pre-assembled windows and doors for you to use in the construction of your log cabin, which make your purchases look and style stand out from any other building.

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK

We are always listening to our clients with regards to how we get the very best information to our customers when it comes to how the log cabins are constructed and how best to explain, through our instruction manuals, how simple, straight forward and quick they are to build.

Garden Buildings Direct’s instruction manuals are designed in a simple and easy to follow step by step format to help the customer build their log cabin as quickly, efficiently and as safely as possible. We give you as much product protection information as necessary to allow you to get the most out of your building and to extend it’s life span. We set out in an easily readable format of what you get in your building’s construction pack and what fixtures and fittings you will receive for easy identification when construction begins.

In short Garden Buildings Direct set out to make your purchasing and construction of our special buildings as easy and straight forward as possible. We know that our log cabins stand out from our competitors because of these factors and the service we provide.

Why not visit our web pages to view our range of Log Cabins: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Log-Cabins"

A handy log cabin buying guide is also available here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Article/log-cabin-buying-guide

The second of our buying guides is available now and it's an insight in to log cabins. As people are expanding their living space in to their gardens instead of making the massive decision to move house, just to add an extra room to their property, more and more people are purchasing Log Cabins to achieve that extra space.

Instead of the upheaval of moving homes and having to learn a new postcode a log cabin allows the home owner to add an extra dimension to their property. This building can be used for many different purposes such as; hobby room, summer house, play room or den, the list is endless. But what’s on offer, what does the buyer need to know? This handy buyer’s guide will inform and highlight the options available.

Read the full article here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Article/log-cabin-buying-guide"