Optimum boat: UPDATE

The Optimum 60 is not your run of the mill home office – it costs at least £285,000, it has three floors with a roof terrace, and it’s a boat.

In fact, it’s a very pleasant boat, just over 19m by just under 5m with a glass-reinforced plastic hull and around 1,050 square feet of floor space which can be divided into individual office rooms. It’s got all the usual basics (plumbing, mains power, glass atrium) with some more unusual extras such as underfloor heating and hot tub.

Boat yes, but it’s not really meant for zooming around on the river. This shed-boat-shed has been designed very much as a floating office and to be permanently moored. One slight problem is that you need something a little larger than an unused corner of your back garden to set it up but Waterspace, the company behind the Optimum 60, is talking to marina managers nationwide to negotiate convenient moorings.

It’s probably not a dealbreaker, but delivery costs are not included.

For more details go to Waterspace's web site here.

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Unusual home offices - Yurts

Every day this week I’ll focus on a type of home office that is a little out of the ordinary. The first is the noble Mongolian yurt, the felt-lined tent of the nomadic Mongolian people. Importers Amanda and Peter Copp of The Authentic Mongolian Yurt Company are selling them to customers not just as homes and meditation spaces but also home offices.

“Because the crown is so much larger than UK-made yurts the Mongolian yurt is very light,” says Amanda, “and with a thick cosy layer of felt as well as a heavy canvas cover, they are perfect for year round use.” Mongolian yurts are designed to be warm in winter and cool in summer and one of the unexpected benefits of the thick felt is the noise insulation. They have wonderful decoratively-painted woodwork, a bit like the painting on gypsy caravans.

For more details got to their website here.

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treehouse garden offices

On a related theme, this week we look at the ultimate home office environment, the treehouse shed. And all you need is a good strong tree, preferably one with deep roots such as an oak, chestnut or apple rather than shallower ones such as sycamore. Treesheds themselves are usually built of more modest woods including Radiata Pine, and Canadian or Scandinavian Redwood.

An office with a view - and you do get a marvellous view - is not cheap and a good-sized one from leading supplier The Treehouse Company could set you back £40,000. Founder John Harris has built all sorts, even with what must be quite a worrying extra, log burning stoves. You’ll pay a similar price for a treeshed from specialists Blue Forest whose work is pictured above, but it does come with heating, lighting, broadband and phone lines, and a small kitchen. It also has a veranda for those Hemingway moments.

You can of course selfbuild if you’re feeling confident, but remember that while the views are better the higher you place your treeshed, the wind speed is greater too so working in a storm could be a bit hairy. For some practical pointers there is some useful information online at The Treehouse Guide.

If a treeshed is not a realistic possibility, you could always settle for a laptop in a hammock.

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Choosing a shed - Rooms Outdoor

If you're making the leap from working on a dining room table or a bedroom into buying a garden office/shed, choosing the perfect fit is a problem. Every week I'll be profiling a different supplier to at least show the vast range that's out there. This week Rooms Outdoor

sent me some images of their range. They look good, towards the more 'designed' end of the market and are 'proper' structures with foundations (which may of course make planning permission a little dodgier since this means they cannot be described as temporary structures). Their Solo model, pictured here, is the one aimed at homeworkers, but the Moderno and Cuberno look nice too.

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