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

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

For what seems like eons the shed has been repeatedly redesigned to look exactly the same. Nothing much has changed, but Garden Buildings Direct has begun to change this. If you’ve read previous blog entries on this site you’ll have read about the BillyOh Park Stable Door Tongue and Groove Apex and the BillyOh Park Gardener’s Retreat explaining that these two buildings have moved away from the traditional apex design to embrace the need for a shed to be less of a storage product and more of a user friendly working environment.

Now the clever craftsmen at Garden Buildings Direct have come up with another unique product that gives the shed a new dynamic aspect. By raising the ridge height of the BillyOh Park Woodman’s Hut towards the rear of the shed, technically offsetting the pitch backwards, larger or taller objects can be manoeuvred in for storage where they had to be laid down before.

The two front facing windows and the double doors allow ample light and greater access to the 10’ x 6’ garden building that looks more house like than shed like and the roof truss adds to the overall strength of the unique roof design.

The BillyOh range grows weekly and the look of the garden shed will be changed forever. I’m intrigued to find out what’s next on the drawing board. I’m sure it won’t be long.

Take a look at the product description here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Wooden-Sheds/BillyOh-Park-Workman’s-Hut-Premium-Shed

The traditionally shaped garden shed doesn’t allow for a lot of personal manoeuvring space when you get inside of it. The shed basically allows you to walk in to it and place something in it in a position that will later become awkward when you try to get it out again and then the design basically just lets you to walk out again. Unless you have the room in your garden for a wide workshop, which the majority of people won’t, then you will be racking your brains to find a suitable alternative.

The issue is simply down to orientation of the storage space within the garden shed. Most wooden sheds are straight down the middle in configuration, with little to no sideways movement allowed. What is required is a different approach to shed design. The shed will, most probably, be predominately used for storage and a 10’ x 6’ footprint will give a tremendous area for such a use. Altering the dimensions, however, so that the shed is wider than it is deep and by moving the door to the side of the front gable the usefulness of the 60 square feet space is increased.

Once this is done there is now a lot more workable space when you consider that before you could only maintain a linear approach to storage or your workspace. The altered design gives you the benefit of being able to work in a full circular space with much more head room to utilise for storage, shelving, racking, you name it.

This configuration allows for a more agreeable area for the use of a work bench under the window in the front gable giving more light to your working environment and a set of offset double doors would give access to almost half the shed.

Garden Buildings Direct have several buildings that take note of these consideration in their design one of which is the BillyOh Park Gardener’s Retreat which is a 10’ x 6’ shed that is wider than it is deep with offset double doors. Take a look at the product description here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Wooden-Sheds/BillyOh-Park-Gardeners-Retreat-Apex-

I was looking for a way to stop my shed from exploding, okay maybe it wasn’t going to erupt into a ball of fire billowing a mushroom cloud of smoke in to the ether, but more realistically the door doesn’t shut properly and the glass might be knocked through at any moment. I needed a solution and found that I would become quite confused as to what I required to sort out my bulging shed problem.

What I found when I stripped out all of the junk during my biannual shed tidy-up was that I seemed to horde things that I generally accessed three or four times a year at the back of my shed, out of reach and unnoticed. This meant that I would shuffle down to the shops and buy more of the same stuff, that I couldn’t locate (except during said biannual shed tidy-up), and then double up on everything and was becoming poorer. What I needed was a simple storage solution that gave me access to these items on a daily basis without having to unload my shed of it’s contents to find them.

As a keen gardener I’m forever looking for my empty pots to stuff the latest seasonal bulbs in or hopelessly trying to find my secators, trowel and gardening gloves. But what I’m confronted by in my shed is two bicycles, one of which is hoisted to the roof by nylon string as I try in vain to create a little floor space, dangerous looking long handled gardening tools, a steadily breaking down mower, power washer and a rack of paint pots and other assorted gardening and decorating gear. And as I recall, from what I remember the last time I used it all, it was all stacked neatly and tidily, but somehow now it has all cascaded on to the floor and merged in to the latest Tracey Emin work of art.

So... I decided that I needed a simple gardening storage solution. A small unit that would complement my amply overstuffed shed, that I could keep my gardening gear in and be able to get at it as often as I needed during the growing season, that would be perfect and I found it at Garden Buildings Direct.

Garden Buildings Direct has a range of garden storage solutions and in particular the solution that fit my specific requirements the BillyOh Storage Chest, which is a wooden storage unit with an opening lid and fold down front that has a footprint of 4’ x 3’ and is 3’ deep. The BillyOh Storage Chest is big enough for my hose, pots, trowel, gloves, compost, seed trays and those paint cans that I’ll never use, but keep just in case.

Take a look at the product description here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Wooden-Storage/BillyOh-Storage-Chest

When I was trying to move house recently my wife and I commented on the dilapidated old 8’ x 6’ wooden shed that resided at the bottom of our prospective new home as we viewed about the thousandth property that month (my wife likes to be nosey). We both commented on the fact that if we did buy this house, which we were secretly keen on and made sure the vendor didn’t know it by listing all of the problems that needed sorting out and how much money we had to spend on it, that the shed would have to go and as bonfire night was fast approaching we’d have to get a new one quite quickly.

The only problem was that we would have to replace it with another that didn’t impose on the garden as much as this monstrosity did. The 8’ x 6’ stretched across the lawn, which looked like it needed a bit of weed and feed, and blocked half of a lovely view of the expanse of fields beyond. Also the garden itself wasn’t deep enough to place the shed in any other orientation as there was a massive willow tree between it and the house. I wasn’t happy about having a shed pressed up against the conservatory window so it couldn’t go there and I wasn’t going to hack a beautiful tree down just so I can sit staring at my shed and having my wife staring at me with that sarcastic look of her’s thinking, ‘Gorgeous shed we’ve got there ‘.

But we didn’t want to lose the amount of storage space that this shed offered, even if the roof was half gone and the floor had rotted away in the corner, I think a dog was kept in there for a while who liked scratching at the building’s floor. So what could we do?

The answer was simple, find a shed that had the same capacity, but had a different footprint that shaved off a foot or two to expose the scenic views of the fields and, as it happens, allowed more light into our garden, but also didn’t require us to hire a tree-chopper.

We found out that an ideal garden shed was actually a corner shed, where the door sits at the front of a 5 sided building, which fits into a right angled corner of the garden. The door could be moved to the left or right of the front panel depending on your requirements, but we needed the door at the front or we’d have to get rid of the low brick wall dividing our garden from the field or put a door in to the tree on the other side.

So we went for the 7’ x 7’ BillyOh Park ‘Stable Door’ Corner Shed and it sits perfectly where the old 8’ x 6’, with a bit of a list once stood. Obviously we bought the house, although we didn’t get to move in to it in time for bonfire night so we ended up with a pile of wood that once made up an 8’ x 6’ shed, but still we are very happy with our corner shed.

Take a look at the product description here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Wooden-Sheds/BillyOh-Park-Stable-Door-Corner-Shed

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

Your garden is looking great, the flowers are growing, the vegetables will taste amazing, the lawn is the best it has been in years and the barbecue has been used several time already and it’s only the middle of May. However, when you put the barbecue away there’s no place in your shed, because of all of your gardening tools filling it, and for some reason you’ve started storing the barbecue in your log cabin, which is fine, but you’re getting a bit fed up of your cabin furniture smelling of burger fat and there is a faint veil of ash floating around the air, which has started to settle on... well... everything.

It’s the same story with the kid’s bikes and now ‘the wife’s’ using the log cabin as a gym there seems to be lady’s dumbbells and aerobic steppers everywhere. Your retreat has become more like a storeroom and all that money you spent on building that little bit of luxury in your garden seems to be going to waste. To top it all you can’t, or rather your wife won’t, get another shed, ‘I’m not having another shed in my garden’, she says.

So you are left with a dilemma, you can’t get rid of the things you are secreting in to your log cabin, but you don’t have anywhere to put them otherwise. What you really need is something that will complement your garden and it’s existing buildings without look out of place or cluttering up the place. If you could extend your log cabin then you would have an answer to the problem.

Garden Buildings Direct is proud to introduce the BillyOh Pathfinder ‘Lean To’ Log Cabin. This handy and aesthetically pleasing addition to your log cabin gives you the elegant storage space you have been looking for without taking anything away from the beauty of your cabin and therefore your garden. It is 5’ x 7’ and is a compact, but stylish building. It has three sides to allow it to be fixed to the outer wall of an existing building or brick wall, it has solid roof and floor and the 19mm thick boards make it strong and secure.

Return your log cabin to what it was supposed to be, a relaxing place to allow you to make the most of your garden without cluttering it up with junk, garden tools or gym equipment.

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

When looking for a new dog house for your pet pooch there are a few things to keep in mind so you make the right choice for your dog’s sake. A dog kennel should be big enough for the dog to stand up, turn around, and lay down in comfortably and to increase your pet’s comfort a dog bed should be used, which will also assist in keeping the dog kennel hygienic.

As dog’s are ‘den animals’ and prefer a secure, clean and semi darkened nesting area, using a dog kennel can have positive effects on a dog’s training and behaviour. A dog kennel can give a dog a place to get away from a stressful environment and any distraction when they feel they need a nap and is the best place to keep your pet when he/she is unsupervised.

A dog kennel should be made from robust framing and a suitable cladding to make a strong and secure home for your dog and a suitable roofing material, such as mineral felt, should be used to help keep the rain out and the occupant insulated.

At Garden Buildings Direct the tongue and groove BillyOh Lean-To Dog Kennel is a wonderful pent felted roofed wooden building and is perfect for your ‘man’s best friend’ to curl up in at night or during the day when you are at work. The Lean-To Dog Kennel has ample room for your pooch to make a cosy home in and with the off-set door way your hairy little buddy can keep out of the draft and remain safe and secure.

The BillyOh Lean-To Dog Kennel is comfy, secure and safe, it comes with easy to follow step-by-step assembly instructions and is factory pre-treated to help protect the kennel for up to eight weeks.

Take a look at the full description here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Pet-Housing/BillyOh-Lean-To-Dog-Kennel

There is also a standard apex roofed dog kennel here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Pet-Housing/BillyOh-Dog-Kennel