A shed of his own
The joys of a rickety man-cave
‘An Englishman’s home is his castle,” goes the maxim. What’s less well-known is the second half of that saying: “But an Englishman’s shed is where he crams all the stuff that won’t fit in his castle, or that his long-suffering wife won’t let him keep indoors any more.”
The shortlist for Cuprinol’s Shed of the Year contest has been unveiled, and this year it has joined forces with rural escape website Cabin Porn to find the world’s best outhouses. Nominees include a lakeside art studio, a spherical suspended treehouse and a clifftop bivouac.
These competitors are more reminiscent of Grand Designs than the humble, tumbledown timber constructions at the end of the garden that most of us think of. A real shed doesn’t need a designer rebrand – just a coat of paint and a bit of a clear-out.
Man’s need for a small space of his own started with prehistoric caves, which have evolved into sheds and garages. Or, as they are often known today, “man-caves”. Sanctuaries where we can fritter away time on fleeting hobbies (homebrew, or that half-written screenplay); unsuccessfully repair stuff (“This toaster’s still got some life in it”); store accumulated junk (“Really should put those football programmes on eBay”); and generally carve out some Bloke Time.
While women love to “declutter”, men prefer to hoard. Hence our sheds become an al-fresco loft, or super- sized version of the “man-drawer” that Michael McIntyre riffs a whole comedy routine around – the one place in every house that’s chock full of phone chargers, light bulbs, batteries, keys, appliance instruction booklets, takeaway menus and foreign currency.
A textbook shed should smell of damp, grass cuttings and creosote. There should be cobwebs with a desiccated spider corpse at the centre. When you open the door, you should have to dodge a lawnmower, garden chair or rusty Swingball set.
My own 8ft x 6ft hut is ostensibly a “garden office”, purpose-built five years ago when our second child evicted me from my indoor study. I now make the arduous 20-second commute each morning to write articles like this. I can’t imagine life without it. Judging by the jealous noises that most of my male friends make, they want one, too.
It’s become my HQ, my mind palace, my bolthole. The place where I work, think, potter and play. “Just nipping out to get something from the shed,” I’ll call to nobody in particular on a Sunday afternoon, and still be in there two hours later, tinkering away with the cricket burbling on the radio.
But my work haven is morphing into an old-school shed. Slowly but surely, it’s becoming home to children’s scooters, bags of barbecue charcoal and mud-caked trowels. It won’t be long until I’m sitting on an upturned terracotta plant pot, reaching over some trellis to type, and occasionally getting tangled in a badminton net.
With property prices ever more preposterous and space at a premium, sheds are often a solution to suit growing families that would otherwise have to upsize. Us “sheddies” are a growing breed. Men’s health experts say sheds even help us live longer, with tangible stressrelieving benefits. Sheds help keep love alive, too: research by Big Yellow Self Storage found that 80 per cent of men say their relationships are better for having one.
It’s probably why I’ve heard talk of a growing trend for “she-sheds” among women – think Cath Kidston, and Farrow & Ball, as opposed to splinters and old tins of paint – but my partner has never expressed an interest, except to enquire what I get up to in mine.
And it is weeks like this when my shed comes into its own. Wind is no longer rattling the windows, rain has stopped pattering on the tin roof, and my pride and joy is bathed in sun for half the day. I might leave the door ajar for the first time in months, enjoying the spring air, birdsong and distant wail of sirens, until the goosebumps form.
A true man-shed might not be chic or even comfortable. But this is a space for all seasons, battered by the elements but loyally waiting for us to undo the padlock and step inside. Surely they don’t have to succumb to the creeping over-design of the modern world? Everywhere else nowadays resembles a Scandinavian airport lounge, boutique hotel lobby or hipster coffee shop.
Let’s keep our sheds as they’re meant to be: eccentric, grubby, and full of woodworm and wonder. They might not win Shed of the Year but they’ve won a place in our gardens, not to mention our hearts.
‘Let’s keep our sheds as they’re meant to be: eccentric, grubby, full of woodworm and wonder’