Setting up shop… in a shed

Followers of this column will be delighted to hear that the Birch household is expanding. Not with sprogs, I hasten to add, but with space. You see, we’ve bought a new abode in the Cotswolds, complete with an attic, a garden and plenty of storage. But already my husband is planning to make it “bigger” and allegedly “better” – by investing in a shed.

For those unfamiliar with sheds, they are small wooden buildings (read overgrown dog kennels) that English men – or so I’ve always thought – stick at the bottom of their gardens.

I’ve never had a shed myself, having lived most of my diaper-free days in cities like Dubai, but my grandfather, who has spent his life in England, has.

And that’s what a shed in England has always been, a secretive space for older men to escape to; where they can do whatever they want away from the prying eyes of their wives.

So men who say they are popping out to fix something (“don’t worry your pretty little head about it darling, it’s electrical stuff, I’ll sort it”) are really looking for peace in their ‘man cave’ to do all the things they are not ‘allowed’ to in the house, which can be as obvious as smoking, or as subversive as thumbing through exotic magazines.

It also serves as a place to stash their prized possessions (sporting trophies and old vinyl) and to bask in their boyish dreams (Star Wars memorabilia and vintage comics). Exciting stuff. I haven’t seen my husband this passionate since Manchester City won something.

“We need one to keep all the gardening stuff in, and bikes, and it will be good for storage,” he argues. I’m not buying it – literally and metaphorically.

We don’t even have a massive garden – although it does have an apple tree and pond – and we already have not one, but two, sheds. Surely, a third will get the neighbours talking?

But the neighbours’ small talk is the least of my worries. Concerned that my husband might have a secret stash of something shocking, or more worryingly, be turning into a sad, old man, I do my research and discover that in the UK, where houses are smaller than most Dubai villa bathrooms, sheds are not just prolific (there are more sheds than houses, according to an analysis of Google Earth images of UK suburban streets carried out by tools retailer Screwfix) but a real phenomenon.

Shed enthusiasts have their own name (Sheddies); website (www.readersheds.co.uk); week (UK National Shed Week in July) and even an annual get-together (Shed of the Year competition). And then there’re the books: 101 Things to do in a Shed, The Joy of Sheds and, my favourite, Fifty Sheds of Grey, 144 graphic images of, well, sheds for the “not-too-modern-man”.

But it is the glossy (yes, really) tome Shed Chic that stops me in my ‘sheds are shady’ tracks. One, because chic is not something I associate with sheds; and two, because it’s written by a woman – a ‘chic woman’. As I flick through the photos of surprisingly stunning and, dare I say, sexy sheds, packed to their wooden rafters with pretty, gorgeous, feminine things, I discover that not only are sheds finally shaking off their shady reputation and having their day in the sun, but an increasing number of women – sexy, savvy and successful, no less – are becoming ‘shed heads’.

Or is it? According to www.shed working.co.uk, an estimated 80,000 UK workers are now based in garden sheds, many of them working mums. And it’s not just that sheds are big business, but that big business is being made in sheds. Shed-based businesses have started many a success story – think creative director for Google Tom Uglow, author Neil Gaiman and entertainer Snoop Dogg.

And so, inspired and imagining myself beavering away at the bottom of my garden, I’ve done a once unthinkable act. I’ve bought myself a shed. I have of course converted it into a special space that befits the modern woman, including somewhere to charge my iPad, iPhone and iPod (I have more apples than our tree) and to make a cup of tea.