Famous writers could inspire your creative space

A garden office can be the perfect solution for creating a workspace that doesn’t infringe on your home life.

Whether you’re converting your shed, or installing a custom-built garden office, you could do a lot worse than look at some of the most creative minds in history for inspiration.

Many of the world’s most famous writers used a humble shed as a way to get away from it all and focus on the job at hand.

Today’s sponsored post from York Timber Products features some of the biggest names who have converted their shed into a creative space, giving the world a collection of masterpieces that endure to this day:

Roald Dahl
The famous author has long cemented his legacy as a national treasure, having produced timeless tales such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Twits, and James and the Giant Peach.

What makes this level of work even more awesome is that he wrote these in the 6ft by 7ft hut at the end of his garden. Sparsely furnished with nothing but a heater and blankets for winter, a comfy chair, lamp, and green baize board to write on, and decorated with letters and drawings, Dahl’s creative space was definitely built for purpose.

George Bernard Shaw
The infamous Irish playwright produced some of his greatest work from a rotating shed at the bottom of his garden.

Measuring only 64 square feet and with just one window, Shaw built the shed on a circular track to ensure it could be rotated throughout the day to follow the sun’s axis and make the most of natural light – pretty genius, right?

From this sun-trap, Shaw went on to write some of his most famous plays such as Man and Superman and Pygmalion.

Dylan Thomas
You know a workspace is special when it has its own road tour, and that’s exactly what happened with Dylan Thomas’s writing shed in 2014.

A portable recreation, covered in inspirational art as well as quotes from other creative minds, toured the UK to give an insight into the brilliant poet. Dylan ate sweets, read murder mysteries and wrote works such as Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night and And Death Shall Have No Dominion at his shed in Laugharne in Pembrokeshire.

Virginia Woolf
Though at times draughty and damp, Virginia Woolf’s converted tool shed was in an ideal place for inspiring her work, sitting pretty under an apple tree at the end of her garden.

From this humble writing room, Woolf wrote some of her most famous works such as Mrs Dalloway, with her large writing desk taking up the majority of the tiny space. The shed was the place she wrote her final words before committing suicide in 1941.

Philip Pullman
Cluttered and chaotic, with walls covered in a variety of artworks and books filling up the space, Pullman wrote his acclaimed His Dark Materials trilogy from his shed.

Having originally built and moved to the creative space when his son started to learn the violin, Pullman would write by hand for three hours a day using a ballpoint pen and A4 paper.

Since then he has passed the shed onto Ted Dewan, an illustrator, on the condition that he passes it on to another writer when he’s finished with it.

If you’re feeling inspired to start looking for your own creative space to use when working from home, companies like York Timber Products have some great ideas and designs for affordable and practical solutions.