I am a living testament to the the saying, "A man without a shed is like a camel without a hump". in my book any fella that doesn't want a shed should be ashamed of himself, he sets a bad precedent in front of our partners and a generaly bad example to us all, explaining why "Paul" doesn't have a shed and doesn't even want one is not easy.

But seriously I've had a few sheds, some small some not so small. They have ranged in size from approximately 2.5 x 4 metres to 12 x 30 metres. the largest one I used to be able to park my truck and trailer in and still have a lot of room to work with. Oh I miss that shed.

Anyway I don't have pictures of them all but just for the hell of it's i've detailed them all here.

Shed number 1
This was and is still in my Mum and Dads garden, it is technically my dads shed but until I left home it was my favourite place, It is no longer in it's first flush of youth (well over 30 years old) but it still serves as a useful if rather small (clear it out dad) space.

• Construction: Timber walls and roof and floor, with lapped pine walls and a felt roof.
• Size: Approximately 3 x 6 metres.
• Equipment: for many years this contained the Emco star multipurpose woodworking machine inherited from my grandad. That machine became unserviceable in the mid 1990's and went to the tip in 2006 (RIP Emco).

Shed number 2
This one was at our first house in Australia it was in Duncraig Western Australia. It was pretty small but I produced a lot of good useful stuff from in there.

To gain a bit more room I extended the space with a lean too structure between it and the house. That wasn't a total success as the rain used to blow in a bit.

• Construction: Brick walls and asbestos roof
• Size: Approximately 2.5 x 4 metres.
• Equipment: Triton mk3 work centre, floor standing drill and various assorted power and hand tools.

Shed number 3
This one I had built to order shortly after we moved to a 5 acre property in Henley Brook Western Australia. The shed seemed to be huge when I first moved my gear in, but by the time we moved some 10 years later I had practicaly filled it to the rafters.

It took a 10 cubic metre skip to deal with the rubbish (my stock!!) that came out and we still had a large truck load to move to the new house.

• Construction: Reinforced concrete floor, Steel walls, roof and structure.
• Size: 6 x 12 metres
• Equipment: 3 phase power and a wide range of gear firstly the aforementioned Triton work centre later replaced by a 12 inch contractors table saw, 14 inch band saw, 15" planer, 6 inch Jointer, 2hp dust extractor, Drill stand, a circa 1906 metal work ling lathe and more hand tools and small power tools than you could poke a stick at.

Shed number 4
Again I had this one purpose built when we moved to a small acreage, This was the largest of my sheds and had space galore, the down side of so much space is that the management (her in doors) would insist on moving stuff into it. that restricted things a bit but there was still a lot of room.

• Construction: Reinforced concrete floor, Steel walls, roof and structure.
• Size 12 x 30 metres
• Equipment: all of the gear from shed 3 (minus the rubbish) with the addition of a woodworking lathe, bench mortiser, and a Little rat woodworking jig.

The down side of this type of shed in Australia is that it gets so very hot there that the your shed is virtually unusable in the middle of a summers day, I've had hot glue sticks melt and run out of the bottom of the box.

Shed number 5
This one was already built when we moved to a 60 acre property near Albany on the South coast of Western Australia. It was roughly 25 years old at the time and showing some rust, mainly due to it's being only about 1 or 2 kilometers from the ocean. It wasn't as large as my previous two but it was a very usable space it even had a small mezzanine floor for extra storage and a back room were I set up a makeshift spray booth.

• Construction: Concrete floor, steel walls with a timber and steel roof.
• Size: 8 x 14 metres
• Equipment: All of the tools from my previous two sheds along with a 1974 Ford 7000 tractor which sometimes shared the space.

As I've said before on these pages, we moved to the UK in early 2007, for the move I compressed the shed contents into 3 tea chests and 1 cardboard box, this as you might imagine was no mean feat. To do it I had to have a major sell off. I actually got a reasonable price for most of the gear, not a fortune but I think a fair price for both sides.

I have had to apply for approval to have a shed on at our current house and have just recived that approval. Unfortunately as I feared they won't let me build one bigger than 6 foot x 8 foot (don't laugh). That's a bit of a problem, I reckon digging a basement to the thing will be the only solution.

I suppose we will either move or i'll be discovering (I said don't laugh!) the art of utilising a small space. I can hear Australia calling again !!