Forget the ‘man cave’, this is the year women are taking over garden sheds – Telegraph.co.uk

A woman must have, Virginia Woolf famously wrote, money and a room of her own. But when youve got a house full of kids, you work from home or you share a flat, itcan be hard to carve out your ownspace. Which is why women areincreasingly colonising what has, traditionally, been an exclusively male domain: the garden shed.

There are a range of monikers, fromthe fairly awful-sounding she shed, which has nearly 110,000 posts on Instagram (a number which has grown20per cent in the past six months), to the no better fem-den. But whatever you call it, a shed that has been transformed with the feminine touch, rather than being just a space to store tools or shelter a chap listening to his wireless and avoiding chores, is growing in popularity.

The rise in the number of women wanting to transform their sheds is certainly gaining interest and popularity, with platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram providing inspiration, says Marcus Eyles, horticultural director atDobbies Garden Centres.

More and more, we are seeing that the garden is being considered a fifth room and an extension of our living space, and so more thought and planning is going into designs, styling and accessories.

Kirsty Wark, the broadcaster and author, is among those who retire to hershed (although she describes it as a summerhouse, really). She has posted a picture on Instagram of her shed at her Glasgow home, styled with a striped deck chair and a table lamp made from an upcycled Harris Gin bottle, calling it a luxury.

Its a quite separate space from the house, but beside it, she says. It affords a quite different view of the garden, which is endlessly fascinating. I read and write in there, and sit in the evening with a drink. Its the combination of a work and meditative and conversation place.

Similarly, Farrah Storr, the glamorous editor of Elle magazine, put a picture of her beautiful sky-blue painted shed at the bottom of her garden in Kent on social media, with its pair of matching bay trees flanking the door. It is, she says, a place she goes to write in peace.

Storr and Wark are not the only oneslooking for a touch of luxury atthe bottom of the garden. We are finding that more and more of our female clients are asking us to design cosy covered seating areas, summerhouses and she sheds that enable theirgarden to be used all year, says landscape gardener Victoria Wade.

If youre looking for an instant fix,there are a number of ready-made options on the market. Inspired by the idea of a space to read in peace, I spent a morning putting up a snug Dobbies shed with a lean-to for the logs for my non-existent wood burner.

But there are fancier options with more significant price tags. Take the National Trusts Crane Blickling sheds, inspired by outbuildings on Trust land in East Anglia and made by craftspeople in Norfolk, which start from 2,699, or the Gardener modular shed from The Posh Shed Company, from 970.

For something really spectacular, and when the budget is limitless, lookto Lady Anne Fields specially commissioned artists studio at her Grade II listed country home in southDevon. The wooden structure was designed by architects Mark Hoare and Charles Morris to blend into the estates landscape.

How you incorporate your shed into the garden matters, as you might be looking at it every day from the kitchen window. Some buildings are best recessive and tucked away, background buildings, whereas others might want to be focal and centre of attention, Hoare explains.

Its important to think about how it will be used, and where a new structure should sit in terms ofahierarchy of other buildings inthegarden landscape. Materialswhich weather and mellow over time will naturally settle into a garden setting and so are usually safe bets.

Almost any structure can be made tolook more polished with a lick of paint. You can be a little more creative in colours and styles than you may be in the main house, Eyles advises.

In an attempt to make my shedlookmore like Derek Jarmans Prospect Cottage in Dungeness, Kent, Ive painted it black (I recommend Sandtex 10-year exterior paint, which only needs one coat).

One easy hack that designers use as a flourish is to paint the window frames and doors a contrasting colour to the body of the shed in tonal shades. Try shades such as Acorn and Windmill Lane exterior paints from Little Greene, two muted and complementary shades of green.

Hoare adds that encouraging plants to climb over buildings also helps to soften their impact and blur the lines between hard and soft. Wark strung up outdoor lights around her roof edge, and they are intertwined with clematis.

Slapping some paint on inside, too, helps a shed feel like a retreat rather than just a storage space; Wark painted the walls and ceiling of hers with some leftover white paint from an interiors project, so I followed suit.

Depending on the sheds intended function, youll need furniture: either a big table or work bench for creative endeavours or comfy chairs for relaxing and reading.

Wark says she added in two striped steamer chairs I brought home from our place in Mallorca, and installed an oil radiator that looks quite vintage (although its actually from B&Q). To cover the floor, Wark fitted a piece of artificial turf. Alternatively, you can try an outdoor rug; look for ones made from recycled plastic bottles, such as from Weaver Green.

Running electricity from your house to your shed can be quite easy, Ive found, but armoured cabling is key. This means you can play around with lighting: a table lamp will set a cosy tone. If you can fit a log-burning stove in your shed, youll barely need to leave. The British company Vesta Stoves has a wood burner called the Log Cabin Stove designed for just such a small space, for 1,100.

Once the feminine atmosphere is set, it might be time to let the men back in to show them what theyre missing out on. Wark says that her husband, Alan is welcome to join her for conversations, as well as to smoke the odd cigar. But I think I might keep mine to myself.

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Forget the 'man cave', this is the year women are taking over garden sheds - Telegraph.co.uk