The Sustainable She Shed
The Sustainable She Shed (SSS) is Lisa’s backyard studio made from recycled materials. It is a small detached building to be used as a garden retreat for Lisa were she can take time out and do things just for herself. Being her own personal space it was important to Lisa to build inline with her strong environmental ethics, so 100% second hand building materials built by The Upcyclist was the go.
In this project we managed to utilise salvaged materials for nearly every stage of the build. Here is a breakdown of the eco credentials for the SSS: Concrete free foundations, recycled framing timber, secondhand roofing iron and weatherboard exterior, pallet wood interior, salvaged and restored, windows and doors, salvaged hardwood floorboards, creative reuse of a few solid timber cupboard doors, recycled architraves and skirting boards, second hand insulation blanket and plywood from packing crates. This was all put together by me “The Upcyclist” and a solid crew of Lisa’s friends and family.
That solid crew of Lisa’s friends and family were actually integral to this project coming together. Preparing second hand building materials for re-use is a labour intensive process. The materials may be cheap, or free, but you have to pay in human effort in order to end up with a high standard of finished product. For this project the recycled hardwood floorboards and pallet wood took countless hours to prepare. Before I even arrived Lisa had held 2 working bees pulling apart pallets and sanding the boards and once we had all the salvaged materials prepared I worked over weekends so that the bespoke nature of putting all these materials together could be done with the many helping hands of Lisa’s friends and family.
I thoroughly enjoyed this project for the amount of recycled materials we managed to use, the community of happy helpers I had to work with and the commitment of Lisa to keep it recycled and hand made. I have to say I can’t wait the next Sustainable She Shed project to be commissioned.
Wide open, onto the garden
Re-use all the way
Old windows and palletwood, what a combo
Salvaged floor boards, cupboard doors and palletwood
Recycled window and cladding
