DOES EVERY WOMAN NEED A SHED? Not a SheShed, I don’t use the term as I think it sounds vaguely pornographic and/ or patronising into the bargain. Just a shed, a space for oneself.
The short answer is of course, yes. The longer answer takes us through the last few years, from moving house, converting and creating a studio from an old outbuilding, leaving my job in arts conservation after 16 years, becoming entirely obsessed with ceramics, starting a small one-woman business in a global pandemic, building another small shed and now writing about it! Oh and starting work in conservation again whilst trying to keep my artist self going..
If any of that sounds like it might be interesting or amusing (shall I put here that yes, the cat features heavily, as does extreme mess and exhaustion but enjoyment and a sense of achievement too) then please come with me as I tell the story..
Oh, and as an introduction, I’m Stephanie, a misplaced Australian from just north of Melbourne who took herself to the UK for 6 months travelling in 2003 and finds herself still here in 2021.. This was not the plan.
THE BEGINNING
So my story picks up with the decision to move to an old cottage in Norfolk. This was summer 2017, I was about to continue doing the Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain with my sister and wasn’t really concentrating on house hunting. R and I (and my sister on a visit from home) saw two places, one a wreck, and the other the cottage in question, before my sister and I headed off to walk for 300km (side note for those who are interested- this was the central section of the camino, we had to do it in three sections due to time constraints).
Now I generally hanker after a light filled house with large windows, tall ceilings and lots of space, you know, like the ones you see on tv shows like Grand Designs… Instead, after a very quick process, I found myself the slightly dubious joint owner of an old cronky wonky cottage with low ceilings, even lower doorways and bags of charm. Oh, and no central heating, a matter which escaped our memories when deciding to put an offer in.
Are you already getting the picture that my plans often go a bit awry?
One of the things that capped it was the ‘shed’. Down the end of the curved garden there was an outbuilding, black painted like lots of barns and houses in this area.
Part of this had already been turned into a small L shaped office with a little sink and wood burning stove. It had been very well done but was tiny. It was the larger space that really caught our eyes, it was a proper garden shed, filled to the brim with old odds and ends and frankly, rubbish.
Seeing past all if this was a small but decent size rectangular space (about 3 x 4 m) and constructed from what looked like mud.
Well, this was my first introduction to the east Anglian tradition of clay lump buildings, a traditional building technique that has been around for centuries.
It’s effectively like a mudbrick or adobe building such as you see in Spain as you see below.
Made from large lumps of clay and straw, animal poo, and anything else that could be found, slaked down, compacted together and then used to build walls. I’ll go into much more detail about the mud in a later post… Isn’t that an exciting thought? I’ve tempted you to stay with me I know.
The fact that it was a dark, dirty mud building didn’t deter us, in fact we relished the challenge to turn it into a studio for all the things we wanted to do. Was that a crazy misguided decision when both working full time in London and Cambridge respectively? Yes it was…
Does every woman need a shed? Part two can be seen by clicking below.