Time and Relative Dimension in Space.....Shed.

So our Amazing Space project was to be a TARDIS which is short for "Time and Relative Dimension in Space"...Shed ,from the BBC show "Dr Who". Now this isn't my first attempt at a Tardis, as in our last house I converted a pair of old Edwardian wardrobe doors into a built in Tardis/wardrobe for my daughter Erin. However this one was to be on a grander scale, though not much more of a grander budget.

  As the name implies the Tardis would be based on a converted shed...In fact our old allotment shed which we got for free about five years ago. Now clearly this 8x6ft shed looks nothing like a Tardis, but with the application of Yorkshire ingenuity and a whole load of recycled timber and assorted junk ,it would be transformed. The first challenge was to dismantle the Shed and transport it a mile across town to its new home at the bottom of our garden in a clearing on the edge of some woodland. This is where we pressed our trusty campervan into service to transport it before we could start to restore the shed.

 

 Simple as it sounds though, every stage of the build was being filmed for Channel 4's "George Clarkes Amazing Spaces" so we were forever stopping to film from another angle or to do a retake. This meant relatively a few seconds on TV could take hours to film, but it was fun for us to do.To make the Tardis stand out more we planned to build it on short legs, so when viewed from the house it would appear to be hovering just above the ground. Our next door neighbour gave us an old length of railway sleeper which we cut up to make six legs, which we then attached to the strengthened shed floor.

After repairing all the rotten timbers in the old shed, we rebuilt it on the prepared base which created it's own challenges. As it was squeezed in-between the tree's and there was little space to work around it especially when putting the roof on. This ironically created much hilarity for the film crew when I fell out of the tree I was climbing in order to fix the roof on the Tardis. I will point out it was my project manager, otherwise known as my nine year old daughter Erin, who suggested I climb the tree in the first place. So I blame her..;-)

.To add more light and to give great views up into the tree canopy above, we cut three "port holes" into the roof  into which we fitted reclaimed "safety" glass. These would allow you to lay on the bunks that I would build in the Tardis and look up into the trees above..


So the basic shed was rebuilt, but it hardly looks like a Tardis does it? Stage 2 would involve building a Tardis façade that would cover the front of the shed and also double up as a deck for the kids to play on.....But I'll save that for the next blog... :-)