The humble garden shed is a very popular British obsession and the shed is used for a massive amount of different purposes. Traditionally the shed is there for the storage of garden tools, bikes, barbecues, garden furniture etc but is quite often used for a home workshop where the house holder can spend time in his shed beavering away either making things for the house or by following their hobby. Having a separate space away from the home allows anything you are working on to be left on the side ready for when you come back to it. You can also get a little bit of peace and quiet and some ‘me’ time which we all need in these stressful times.

Many people share their buildings with others like minded people and they can bond over a model train, or some form of electronic hobbies. They can talk about the pros and cons of the various ways of looking at their hobbies. My wife has a garden potting apex shed which she uses to make greeting cards and quite often has friends down there so they can share their hobby.

With the large number of variations required you need to get that special building to suit your needs and that is where ‘1st Choice’ can help. All their buildings can be made to suit and you can see loads of shed images and summerhouse images to give you lots of ideas.

Besides these sort of uses the garden shed can reign supreme as a garden office where the basic of your home business can take place. Very useful where you need a little space away from the house for your paperwork and maybe answering a phone. It does be a little more involved if you employ people as planning permission is likely to be required also you need to be aware of any Health and Safety issues because you do not want to get sued – do you?

Pauline Barnett, the pioneering fundraiser, who lived in West Bromwich actually set up one of the town’s first charity sheds in her timber garden shed over 30 years ago. She also believed that the garden shed was for more than just storing lawn mowers and other garden equipment. And over a period of 20 years she was able to raise £65,000 from her garden shed for the Williams Syndrome Foundation by selling second hand clothes from this resourceful garden building.

It was an novelty for a shed to be used like this and was called ‘The Shed Store’ – surprisingly and attracted visitors from a great distance, Mrs Barnett’s daughter, Sue, said that people used to come from miles around and, in fact, one woman used to come over from Ireland with an empty suit case just to visit The Shed Store and fill it with bargains.

If you are thinking of setting up an small business then 1st Choice has a range of wooden and metal buildings to choose from. With any size shed from 6×4 up to 26×14 and which can be adapted to suit your needs you can make your shed work for you and you could become one or the 1000’s of new businesses which start life in a garden building each year.