Upturned boat sails to Shed of the Year title

Take one upturned wooden boat, a few old old windows and doors, a wood burner and some 12V solar-powered lights and you've got the recipe for the 2013 Shed of the Year - a magnificent construction which saw off over 1,900 rivals to sail to the pinnacle of sheddie glory. Alex Holland's boat-roofed shed Clinging to the side …

[IHateWearingATie]

Awesome...

Beats my 'liberated from a building site' portakabin shed hands down (aquired by the previous owner I might add).

Must get creative with it...

[I like noodles]

Just know I could better this in my own back garden...

.... but I'd have to lose the wife first :(

[Annihilator]

Re: Just know I could better this in my own back garden...

I suspect the sequence of events could be easily reversed.

[Anonymous Custard]

SPB?

I'd still love to see the SPB's boffinry shed decloaked for us all to see in its radiant tech-geek glory.

We've had the boat, so perhaps next year the plane/rocket version (or would a rocketry shed generally just be roof'd with sky, at least once the smoke has cleared?).

[Winkypop]

Always be suspicious...

...of a man without a shed.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Always be suspicious...

Sob. Sniff, sniff. I live in a flat. I have nowhere for a shed.

I do have one room that I can barely get into, with lots of tools and boxes in. Along with a slightly embarrassing collection of bottles, that I keep forgetting to take to the recycling centre. But I'm not sure if that's enough to remove me from the list of suspicious characters. Does this mean I'm on some NSA watch-list?

[Anonymous Custard]

Re: Always be suspicious...

NSA - no shed alert?

[Putters]

Re: Always be suspicious...

Didn't stop the guy who owned the luxury flats we could see from the Docklands Light Railway on the approach to Bank (just before the descent into the tunnel) when I used to work near Canary Wharf. He'd installed his shed on his balcony ...

... also didn't stop a work colleague (a lady of a "certain age" who spoke with an accent that would cut glass and a vocabulary that would etch it), on having it's existence pointed out to her, proclaiming it "what a marvellous erection" at full volume on a crowded DLR train ...

[Hollerith 1]

Re: Always be suspicious...

As long as you have a balcony, a shed can be built. I was traveling through Russia and saw some amazing sheds and shed-like appendages built into and emerging from ordinary 1960s-era balconies. Some were wee palaces.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: Always be suspicious...

Having a shed doesn't mean actually having an actual construction down the garden/allotment. As long as a man has a room he can call his own, it is an honorary shed. Not as good as a real one, but it allays suspicion sufficiently.

[Tom 7]

Where's the magazine rack

and the curtains/blinds?

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Where's the magazine rack

Curtains! Pah! Curtains? Are you some kind of metrosexual - with neither beard nor pipe? I spit on you, with your soft namby-pamby ways, with your magazines and your moisturiser...

A real man has a face crinkled by exposure to the sun (not blocked by curtains), and rough as a badger's arse. Heaven alone knows what metaphor that leaves for the roughness of his arse... With a beard that you could loose a ferret in.

Although I'm a bit concerned by him refrigerating his beer and cider. Proper rough scrumpy, which is what one should drink in a shed, ought to be drunk warm and cloudy, and slowly eating its way through the glass. And real beer shouldn't be drunk cold.

[Professor Clifton Shallot]

Re: Where's the magazine rack

"Proper rough scrumpy, which is what one should drink in a shed, ought to be drunk warm and cloudy, and slowly eating its way through the glass"

When my dad was growing up the toothless, cackling man on the allotments would just squeeze rotting apples into a bucket and drink the result.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Where's the magazine rack

More importantly where is the box of Algerian Sherry? (one for the kids there ;o))

[Crisp]

Re: Where's the magazine rack

You know what? A pot plant would really spruce that place up a bit.

[Anonymous Custard]

Re: Where's the magazine rack

You know what? A pot plant would really spruce that place up a bit.

Doesn't that result in you getting banned from the place though, from recent events?

[Jim 59]

Re: Where's the magazine rack

Next to the billiard table, through the long gallery and past the picasso...

[MJI]

Jealous

Sorry only got a 6x8 tongue and groove one

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Jealous

So you dance in your shed, while sticking out your frankly enormous tongue. Bet you're popular...

[hplasm]

Re: Jealous

Nah-not so popular, he's Jamie Oliver!

[steveking1000]

Re: Jealous

New keyboard please!

Thank goodness I was working from home today, or I would now be in the hands of the security guards heading for the medical room.....

[Lamont Cranston]

That's got a lot of windows,

and no sign of a workbench. Are you sure it's a shed?

[GlenP]

Jealous

Think it's time for another shed!

Only got one at home (which is full) and one at parents' house (which is even more full if that's possible) so nowhere to sit with a beer.

[Frankee Llonnygog]

Re: Jealous

If you get a second shed, can I sell you one of my stickers? They're printed with, "My other shed has a porch".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Jealous

Arthur "two sheds" Jackson

[ISYS]

Mods required

I notice that although the gentleman is drinking ale, he has not brewed it himself!

His shed will be complete when he has an assortment of barrels and demijohns fitted with fermentation locks in the corner.

While he is completing his fitting out he will need a small transistor radio permanently tuned to TMS on Radio 4.

[Annihilator]

Re: Mods required

"I notice that although the gentleman is drinking ale, he has not brewed it himself!"

You don't know that, perhaps he's taken it to extreme levels and is bottling and labelling it himself! :-)

I hope there are a couple of bottles of sloe gin sitting in a darkened corner too.

[LinkOfHyrule]

With the £1,000 prize from the sponsors Cuprinol

I like the wooden bloke they used to have in their adverts. hmm I really must stain some wood sometime. urm anyway... good bit of marketing there! Back to the sheds...

I wonder if you could make a boat out of an upturned shed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: With the £1,000 prize from the sponsors Cuprinol

I am building an upturned boat in a shed. If I hold the photo upside down, you have a boat in an upturned shed. Does that help?

OK, back to debugging.

[LinkOfHyrule]

Re: With the £1,000 prize from the sponsors Cuprinol

Blimey, that's getting all meta! Its the shed/boat equivalent of Russian dolls crossed with thingies cat and the age old chicken and egg question - its making my head hurt just thinking about!

[TeeCee]

Re: With the £1,000 prize from the sponsors Cuprinol

I am building an upturned boat...

I'd be intrigued to hear what advantages having the finished article pre-capsized will offer?

[phuzz]

Re: With the £1,000 prize from the sponsors Cuprinol

As shown time and again on Scrapheap challenge, you can make a boat out of an upturned van roof, why destroy your shed?

[Tom_]

Nothing to contribute

I have nothing to give today, but I just can't resist sticking my oar in.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Nothing to contribute

me neither. It's just a load of rowlocks.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Nothing to contribute

He didn't build that shed. He bought it in a sail.

[Victor Ludorum]

Re: Nothing to contribute

I sea what you did there....

[Sorry, "Sorry that handle is already taken" is already taken.]

Re: Nothing to contribute

Cease these terrible jokes!!

*stern look*

[NorthernCoder]

Re: Nothing to contribute

Will the winner please take a bow?

[Yet Another Commentard]

Re: Nothing to contribute-Will the winner please take a bow?

If you lot don't stop I'm going to deck someone.

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: Nothing to contribute-Will the winner please take a bow?

If you ask me, you're all a little bit aft.

[Martin Budden]

Re: Nothing to contribute-Will the winner please take a bow?

The shed needs its own out-house. A poop deck.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Nothing to contribute-Will the winner please take a bow?

And a comfy, curtained off area, the foc'sle.

[TeeCee]

Re: Nothing to contribute-Will the winner please take a bow?

Now it's famous, I'm surpised that nobody's thought to steal the shed and hold it t'ransom.

(OMFG! I deserve to be keeled for that....)

[NorthernCoder]

Re: Nothing to contribute

Well, it mast be said, schooner rather than later

[Ben Holmes]

Re: Nothing to contribute

Yacht are you lot talking about?

[Anton Channing]

Re: Nothing to contribute

I had a similar idea, but it wouldn't float.

[Graham Dawson]

Re: Nothing to contribute

The competition was rigged.

[Roger Varley]

Seems a small price to pay ....

[hplasm]

Great shed!

Lovely stove!

[SkippyBing]

Re: Mind you, looking at the boat

Isn't it the wrong way up for the clinker design to work? Each overlap provides somewhere for the water to pool which doesn't strike me as a good idea.

[Martin Budden]

Re: Mind you, looking at the boat

Yes, and I'm sure the overlap direction is the reason for the whole roof/boat being encased in black stuff (what is it? plastic sheeting? shiny tar paint?)

[hammarbtyp]

Old news

They've been doing that on Lindisfarne for at least a 1000 years

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Lindisfarne_Upturned_Boats_in_Harbour.JPG

[hplasm]

Re: Old news

Don't they have houses there yet?

[Chris G]

Cool shed

But not that original, people have been using upturned boats as sheds and even housing since before Dickens David Copperfield.

I will drink a good glass of Asturian cider to it and Mr Holland!

[Mephistro]

Re: Cool shed

Thumbs up for the Asturian cider. Nice, nice stuff.

[mamsey]

If only I'd know of the competition

I might have entered one of mine.

3 and a half sheds, 1 summer house and 1 childrens shed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If only I'd know of the competition

Good idea, keeping the children in a shed.

[Syed]

I had to stop reading...

...after I got to the bit that said "...Sarah Beeny gushed..." and go and have a lie down.

[Johnie]

For goodness sakes..

there's a No Smoking sticker on the rafter. What sort of shed is that?

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: For goodness sakes..

One that hasn't been burnt down yet...

[Trevor_Pott]

Please help a Canuck out here...

It seems to me that Brits have a completely different use of the word "shed" than we do here. In Canada a shed is merely a storage unit. It is not additional living quarters. (We would generally call that an add-on.) Men in Canada use their garages as workspaces and hideouts, or a dedicated office/workspace/basement. Indeed, in Western Canada the basement is particularly commmon; hell, mine is 450 sq ft of whatever I want it to be.

So if "shed" in the UK has become synonymous with "man cave" (the North American equivalent), what would you name what we call a "shed?" (A place merely for storage and/or tools.)

Curious about the linguistic differences...

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Please help a Canuck out here...

>A place merely for storage and/or tools.

That's what garages are for.

You put a $20,000 car outside in the snow so you can store a $99 broken lawnmower in the garage.

>Curious about the linguistic differences...

I still laugh when Ontario politicians go cottaging at the weekend.

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: Please help a Canuck out here...

...I have a lake lot...what wrong with that?

[Alistair]

Re: Please help a Canuck out here...

Trevor;

I'm astonished, your letting the side down here. Perhaps you've just not yet seen a working shed. Mind, that would be the term I'd use for it rather than just "shed". I've a basic shed, however it is indeed mostly stuffed with .... umm ... stuff .. but at one point I'll turf the stuff and stuff it with, well working stuff, like oh - that weird saw with the arms and sliders and the spinny thing. And maybe one of those things ya use to put holes in other things.

Right now the shed out back is mostly stuffed with stuff that I need to pull out since its summer and we need the summer stuff out. And I'll have to stuff the winter stuff back in the stuff. Or something like that.

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: Please help a Canuck out here...

Well, I've a basement with ~10K worth of power tools, ~20K worth of computer gear and a 180gal fish tank that we've just recently finished renovating. My shed, OTOH, has garden tools in it. It's rather too small for anything else.

[jonathanb]

Re: Please help a Canuck out here...

A shed describes the type of building rather than what it is used for. An independent building out in the back garden is either a greenhouse, if it is made mostly of glass, or a shed if it is mostly made of wood or possibly metal or plastic with maybe a few windows. It can be used for storage, a work space or a man's hideaway. It doesn't matter. It is still a shed.

[Martin Budden]

Re: Please help a Canuck out here...

I have an independent building out in the back garden. It is used for storage, and as a work space, and as a man's hideaway. It has three rooms: one for garden stuff, one is my brewery & cheesery, one is a workshop/garage with a 32-foot long workbench and an inspection pit and space for four (generally vintage) cars. It is constructed from brick with a metal roof. It is my shed.

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: Please help a Canuck out here...

3 rooms? That's not a shed. That's a major secondary outbuilding.

[Martin Budden]

Re: Please help a Canuck out here...

@Trevor_Pott: OK I admit it is a fairly major secondary outbuilding, even so I still refer to it as "my shed" ;-)

@jungle_jim: Thanks! Visitors are always welcome.

[jungle_jim]

Re: Please help a Canuck out here...

I want your 'shed'