A garden office will add over £12k to your house valuation Here’s how to create your own for a fraction of the retail cost Buying swanky garden buildings and luxury outhouses is a growing trend amongst wealthy home workers during the pandemic. But what if you can’t afford to pay up to £20k for a luxury WFH garden office? DIY fanatics MyToolShed have given us their expert insight on how to build your own garden office for around 15% of the price of the pre-built sheds. MyToolShed’s Garden Office Ambassador Luke Spear was able to build his ideal office building with a budget of just £3k. Create Your Own Garden Office in 10 Simple Steps: Step 1: Levelling A solid, dry and level foundation will ensure that your office stays standing

How Our Homes Will Change Thanks To COVID With lockdown being implemented across the globe, many of us have experienced what it’s like to be trapped at home for long periods of time. This has forced us to view our homes in a different way than before. We require more from them in order to be happy whilst being trapped inside. This piece highlights how many of us have adapted our homes over lockdown and how this will impact the construction and design of houses in the future in an effort to alleviate the struggles we’ve found during the last year. 8 Ways COVID Will Change Home Construction & Design Forever 1. Home Office-Based Searches Skyrocket Over Past Year We’re going to be seeing a lot of homeowners doing

Analysing Lockdown: Home Improvement In 2020. “DIY” and “How-To” related searches increase over 40% during lockdown. Searches for “Paint” increased by 77% between March and April. Inside, the kitchen was the UK's most redecorated room during lockdown. Search volumes for “Fence Paint” increase by 196%. “House Extensions” see huge drop in April-May then yearly high two months later. 2020 saw the UK locked down due to the Coronavirus and at MyToolShed, we’ve been wondering what people have been spending their time doing when it comes to home improvement and which areas of the home people have been focusing on the most. We’ve used a combination of Google Trends and Search Metrics to find out. “DIY” And “How-To” Searches Skyrocket When you delve into Google Trends you can see that

What Will Living Off Earth Look Like? The term “New Space” is one that gets used a lot nowadays as the goal of living off-earth becomes more and more of a reality thanks to the constant advancements in technology. It refers to the recent commercialisation of the space sector where major players in private companies now play an increasingly important role, most notably, companies included in the so-called “GAFAs” (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon). Here at MyToolShed, we’re fascinated by how these companies are going to go about building colonies off-earth and what steps they’re going to have to take in order to create habitable environments in martian worlds. First, let’s compare the two companies that are the current front-runners in the race for New Space.

Have you ever wondered how your home will look by the year 2050? Will the exterior look the same? What technology will be included as standard? Well, here at MyToolShed we’ve been thinking about this and thought we’d have a deep dive into the future of our homes to find out the answers to these questions. The Predicted Home Of 2050 We’ve studied various reports from industry leaders to create the rooms you see below. They’ve been designed based on guidelines given by industry leaders and researchers, using their predictions to create how we believe the house of the future will look by the time we reach the year 2050. Living Room/Social Areas By the year 2050 not only

When your home starts to feel cramped with no space, should you move elsewhere or try to improve it with an extension? It’s a dilemma many homeowners face. However, research shows that an extension could be beneficial in the long-run by adding value to your home. My Tool Shed has consulted with property experts to reveal the best types of extensions to add value to your home, before uncovering how to build an extension on a budget. Uncovered: Top 5 Extensions to Add Value to Your Home We have analysed the best ways to add value to a house through an extension, these are the results:   An Extra Bedroom Can Add 20% to Your Home’s Value According to a survey by NAEA Propertymark, half

Shopping centres, hotels and high-rise office blocks — all buildings you recognise on your daily commute or did before the lockdown had you move to a makeshift desk at home with a view of the neighbour’s back garden. As for the names and faces behind these multimillion-pound investments, they aren’t as recognisable. In what might become a bit of a life-size game of Monopoly, we look at some of the world’s most successful property moguls and stack their sizeable portfolios against one another. Brian and Luke Comer — £880m The County Galway pair left school in their teens to become plasterers, before switching to property development

The start of 2020 has been incredibly unusual and challenging, with the majority of the UK spending a lot more time in the house than they normally would. However, there’s been a property productivity boost as a result. We’ve seen a surge in people sprucing up their homes and kickstarting a good spring clean, with the sales data of tools and paint confirming this. Tool sales shot up hundreds of percent and the odds are that you’d find it tough to get the colour paint you wanted at your local store due to demand. If you’re thinking about using this extra time indoors to do up your home, we have a few tips for you that’ll not only get your house looking as good as new but also add plenty of value to your property too.   Here are some relatively easy

It’s a new year and a lot of people choose this time to redecorate the house and do a little bit of spring cleaning. But if you’re looking to redecorate, what colours do you choose? Well, have you ever considered colour psychology?   What Is Colour Psychology? Colour psychology is the study of hues affecting the nature of human behaviour. Sunlight, and the colours generated by it, influence hormonal responses, making us feel certain ways when we see different colours. These can range from positive feelings such as being relaxed and focused to even negative ones that can cause anxiety.   Colours And How They Can Make You Feel If you’re wanting to use colours that will bring positive vibes to your home, the list above

Common New Build Faults And How To Spot Them Before Buying New build houses have been gaining a lot of news coverage in recent years due to being poorly built. There have been examples of new home buyers finding 100 - 400 faults on houses that cost up to £400,000 to buy, but what is the cause of this, what are the common faults found and how do house buyers prevent finding themselves with a faulty new build?   Why Is The Quality Of Recent New Builds So Poor? In 2017 the Government pledged that one million new homes would be built by 2020, which was not met. According to construction engineering group Calford Seaden, the reason for this was “a