My son had a birthday just the other day, he is now three.  He’s now at the perfect age to bring a playhouse in to his life and therefore a new garden building in to our outdoor living space. Since all of the work we have done on and around the house in the last couple of years is now close to completion we have found the perfect spot to erect the playhouse where his imagination can develop new worlds for him to explore and he can invent new games to play within it. It also has a slide which is over twice as long and twice as fast as his previous plastic based tower, which has been given to a friend’s child who will be able to use it for at least another couple of years, so we are saving the planet in our own little recycling way.

When the plastic tower was dismantled and lay in an unrecognisable mess on the floor the first thing my son did was walk all over it and laugh at how it wobbled under his feet. After three calls, in ever ascending tone and volume, from me for him to get off it, he finally did. I was amazed at how he took the news of the towers demise so well, although we had told him that he was getting a shed for himself (he likes visiting Daddy’s shed a lot although tools, nails and the like do not mix with three year olds ). His shed would be on legs and have a much better slide. So from just that short description he was sold on the idea of the ugly grey tower being extracted from our garden never to be seen again. It always amazes me what a three year old can understand. 

Without so much as being shown a picture of what my son’s shed (playhouse) would look like he was still very excited when the building arrived in our back garden. Although in pieces and without being told what it was he instantly said, ‘Is that my shed, Daddy?’ ‘Yes, mate. Daddy has to put it together first though.’ He smiled at me and then said, ‘Okay, put it together for me.’ There’s nothing like being told what to do to annoy you, even a three year old as cute as he is has his demands.  So for the next couple of nights after work I desperately tried and succeeded in getting it built and painted (preservative) for him for the weekend. Of course he was always saying, ‘Play with me?’ and I’d responded, ‘Daddy’s putting your playhouse together, darling.’ Our time together is precious to us both and working long hours can sometimes get in the way of the quality time (God I hate that sort of term) that we both desire from one another. But for the greater good I pressed on until completion.

By the weekend the playhouse was up and running and my son was up the ladder and down the slide ten or fifteen time in about two minutes flat and in and out of the door over and over again almost like he was testing it in some kind of European car testing facility, all that was missing were the crash test dummies and the black and yellow stickers.  The playhouse passed all of his tests and he hugged me, not because his Mummy told him to but because his world was that much more exciting and even bigger than before. He now has that place of his own to play and develop that was lacking in our home before. He has a new perspective on the garden, or is it the ocean or maybe the moon that he is looking out on to. Whether it is his castle, pirate ship or space rocket the playhouse has become in his mind for that particular time all I know is that I was sceptical that he would use it, but not now, I now understand the pleasure that a playhouse has given to my son and would give to any child.

Check out the range of playhouse available from www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk   

Follow Garden Buildings Direct on Twitter at: @GardenBuildings

Our mate @unclewilco runs a wonderful competition each year called the Shed of the Year on www.readersheds.co.uk. Anyone who has a shed for whatever purpose they deem fit can enter the extravaganza by posting their shed images and info on the www.readersheds.co.uk website and hopefully contribute to all the fun.

As a day job I photograph the products that www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk and our sister websites produce and sell. A lot of the time the garden buildings fall in to obvious categories such as wooden sheds, summerhouses, log cabins and playhouses, among others.  All terms that pretty much give rise to an all too common idea of what the innards of said garden buildings would look like when furnished, furbished and occupied.

However, @unclewilco and the readersheds massive brings your eyes to full focus, even if some of the images are a bit blurry, to the fact that not all sheds and summerhouse are for storing lawn mowers and escaping the, (uh-hum) summer sun in. There is a myriad of different uses and forms of decorative display that adorn these wonderful garden buildings and I’d just like to run some of them by you (with full permission from @unclewilco of course).

The pub shed is probably the best way of escaping your wife’s need to watch Coronation Square and Eastender Street fifteen times a week. You not only get to slink off and have a swift half or two, but you also get away with it because you haven’t actually gone out and left the missus on her own. (Please note that the roles are easily reversible and it could be the wife escaping the football, if you are looking for a second stereotype to complain about).   

There are those fanatics that love all things Doctor Who and Tardis sheds seem to be on the increase in numbers. Maybe they are all the same Tardis, but just at different times in the universes timeline, all converging here and now in so many back gardens. They do highlight the fact that the garden shed isn’t just a sterile building, although cleanliness is mainly pushed out the window in most sheds, but sometimes a fun and entertaining feature of the home.

A home cinema is something I’ve always wanted and a shed that fulfils this dream is just another one of the amazing things that some sheddies have been able to create with their out buildings.  What’s next, ice cream parlours, health spas, whatever it is I come back to the question that has been bugging ever since I started writing this entry (which wasn’t long ago) where do they keep all their lawn mowers, strimmers, deck chairs and wheel barrows?

Go and check out www.readersheds.co.uk and see what the nuttiest sheddies have done with their garden buildings and be inspired yourself to make much more of your garden shed than you may have thought of before.

www.gardenbuildings.co.uk

All images courtesy of @unclewilco and www.readersheds.co.uk

Artists impression of the shipping container to be used as metal shed by a country mechanic.

Dropping my son off at my mother’s this morning I was told it was all going to be fun and games on the quiet leafy country road that she lives on as her next door neighbour was having a shipping container delivered to his front garden. I can see the drama unfold in my mind as a large crane blocks the traffic for a good hour or so as it’s goliath sized arm drags the hulking steel box to it’s new resting place decimating the local tree population as it does so.  

‘A shipping container?’ I recoiled in astonishment. ‘Full of what?’ I asked my mother. ‘Nothing’ she told me. It turns out that the neighbour is going to use it as a workshop.  Once he’s removed all of the Chinese immigrants that have survived the long trip in this soon to be metal shed to my neighbours front garden (this I am kidding about) the neighbour is then setting up his home based mechanic shop within it.  He has been working from his dilapidated old shed for years tinkering with racing cars of all things.  He was once a racing driver himself, albeit at a low level, but his front room is full of shiny silver trophies and plates from those battling days on the asphalt.

I have seen shipping containers before and they are huge things and a metal shed of this kind placed in the front garden of your neighbour might just be a bit of an eyesore. But what a noise the firing up of racing car engines in the mechanics new metal shed will be. Revving engines on a quiet country morning will obviously raise a few eyebrows and annoyed stares. I have to say that the metal shed to be is going to be hidden in the side of the slight hill that his property is built on. I just hope that it isn’t a garish colour. Imagine a humungous bright pink or yellow metal shed nestled in the trees and shrubs of the estate slightly self-consciously thinking  ‘Can anyone see me?’.