Thursday 13 May 2010

Green Benefits of the Garden Annex

Decorated Shed garden annexes and holiday homes – including the Barn – are built to exacting standards that meet and exceed current building regulations on energy efficiency and insulation. This dedication to quality results in a garden annex building that not only looks amazing, but performs to incredibly high standards when it comes to heating, powering and general running.

With such class-leading efficiency - combined with a strict adherence to a sustainable material supply chain – their garden annexes represent truly green investments, providing low-impact living solutions.

The prefabricated build process – with highly-insulating composite panels developed off-site - enables the Decorated Shed team to complete a full project in around four days, massively faster and more efficient than a traditional build of similar proportions.

As with all Decorated Shed garden buildings, their garden annexes and holiday homes are built to specification. This means that the building is designed precisely around your own personal needs, and will begin performing a life-enhancing role from the moment it is completed.

Thursday 6 May 2010

10 Ways Working From Home Saves You Money ...

It can be disrupting working in your kitchen or living room and not give you the chance to concentrate on your work. Research has proven that working in a separate garden office rather than your home will prevent distractions. Decorated Sheds bespoke garden offices are designed to meet your specific requirements, with their natural warmth of Western Cedar designs you can relax and complete your duties without the hustle and bustle of a work place or even your home!
So once you have your garden office – how do you save the pennies?

1. The commute & your garden office
It is obviously cheaper and more environmentally friendly to walk down the garden to your Decorated Shed garden office than it is to drive to work. Although you will have to pay for electrics and heating our garden offices are installed with high performance energy efficient insulation and heating

2. Coffee
Especially if you have a tall cappuccino addiction – the cost of Starbucks can seriously add up. One Starbucks can buy you a weeks supply of the very best organic coffee which will last a lot longer

3. Lunch and snacks
It is easy to spend up to £10 a day on lunch and snacks which does add up. When working at home you can make your own lunches and use up left overs

4. Clothing
When you just need the power suit for the occasional meeting and can wear anything the rest of the time you can save a lot of money on clothing and cleaning. Just make sure you get dressed in the morning, wear a nice shirt or top and brush your hair—more and more working from home involves video calls and conferences.

5. Communications
Business lines can be more expensive than residential lines. Some people are dumping the landline altogether and only using mobile phones as these days great deals on unlimited calls are available. Not to forget they are useful when on the road.

6. Electronics
Your garden office laptop is more likely to be quicker and more efficient than those in a large organisation. Why? Because they have a lot of people to manage and have to put restrictions on services. Not to mention that fact that laptops use a fraction of the amount of energy compared to the desktop computer. (more information on this in our last blog ‘Is telecommuting green’)

7. Furniture
Corporate firms tend to buy matching furniture quite often which is not cheap. In your Decorated Shed garden office you will be able to re use furniture from your home, or once bought i am sure you will not be replacing it in a hurry!

8. Childcare
Childcare is still an issue, but you may have more flexibility in your choices and options. For example – taking turns with your neighbour to pick the children up from school

9. Taxes
Get yourself a qualified accountant and keep all your receipts for travel and all expenses for your business. These will be deducted from your final tax bill. Your final tax bill should be considerably less than if you worked for a company

10. Your garden office
The Decorated Shed team will work closely with you to build your premium garden office. As mentioned in point one their high energy efficient insulation will cut the cost of bills drastically, and we will work to your budget and requirements. They also design the interior, and build electrical points in the foundations which is included in the overall price.

Percentage rises for home workers

The past year has been a difficult time for many of us and the amount of people working from home has risen dramatically, not always in peoples' favour. In some cases people would prefer to work from home and benefit from a healthier and cheaper way of living but employers have not been crazy about it, even though it will reduce overheads and the company's carbon footprint.

For example, telecommuting is growing and eco bosses and workers are giving the carbon footprint solution a go. If the unfortunate situation arises and you don’t have a boss anymore there are plenty of options and well paid jobs out there for home workers.

Decorated Shed have become strong supporters of the working from home theory due to the recession and carbon foot print solutions. They build and design bespoke garden offices and garden studios which have become a popular product recently. They act on environmental issues through their high performance energy efficient insulation and their triple sealed doors and windows buildings. Decorated Shed also use recycled material wherever possible. Their Garden Offices are built to your specific requirements and our objective is to build a eco friendly, beautifully engineered garden office with natural and relaxing interiors to enhance your new work place.