PRICKLEBUMS HEDGEHOG RESCUE AND ENGINE HOUSE ARE THE
SECOND WAVE OF CUPRINOL SHED OF THE YEAR FINALISTS
This week’s episode unveils the winning sheds in the Unexpected and Pub & Entertainment categories
Category winners are being revealed each week on Channel 4’s four-part series ‘Amazing Spaces Shed of the Year’
The two winners are now in the running to be crowned Cuprinol Shed of the Year 2017
A backyard Hedgehog sanctuary and an old-fashioned replica fire station filled with service memorabilia have been selected as the second category winners in the 2017 Cuprinol Shed of the Year Competition.
The winners were revealed last night in the second episode of the annual competition after a record breaking 26,571 public votes.
Taking home the prize in the Pub & Entertainment category Kevin Francis’ Engine House is bursting with fire service memorabilia collected over many years. Featuring a muster bay for firefighting uniforms, watch room and two workshops, Kevin uses his shed to brew his own fire service related beer, all served from a real fire station bar salvaged before it was demolished.
Kevin has tried to maintain the fire service theme throughout the entire building with a sink made from extinguishers, coffee tables made from old hosereels, lights made from extinguishers and a range of other items including a hose, helmets, buckets and sprinklers.
Beating off tough competition, Ailie Hill’s Pricklebums Hedgehog Rescue took home the prize in the Unexpected category. The old garden summerhouse was renovated and converted into a hedgehog hospital, for housing sick, injured or orphaned hedgehogs during their treatment & rehabilitation process, prior to re-release into the wild. This little shed sanctuary is extremely small (roughly 2m square), but can house up to 22 sick hedgehogs.
Creative Director for Cuprinol, Marianne Shillingford, says: “The garden shed is certainly the 5th room of any home and it is amazing to see so many of this year’s entries using this to its full potential. They really have showcased how much more a garden shed can become with some care and creativity and we hope that others are inspired to transform the room at the bottom of their garden’s too.”
The two winning sheds were announced last night by George Clarke on Channel 4’s hit series ‘Amazing Spaces Shed of the Year’, produced by Plum Pictures and sponsored by Cuprinol. Category winners are being announced during each episode of the four-part series, with the final winner being announced in the last episode in September.
Pricklebums Hedgehog Rescue and the Engine House have now secured their place in the final which will see them up against six other category winners in a battle to be crowned Cuprinol Shed of the Year 2017.
Best Unexpected Shed winner, Ailie Hill said: “To be able to showcase my shed and our hedgehog hospital has been such an amazing opportunity and to be crowned a category winner is something I never expected. The other sheds this this year’s competition are amazing and I have definitely been inspired by the wonderful variety of uses.”
Best Pub & Entertainment winner, Kevin Francis says: “The Shed of the Year competition has been nothing but enjoyable and for my Engine House to have won is something I am very proud of! We’ve always had so much fun hanging out in our shed with family and friends, even hosting Oktoberfest parties, and hope people see that their shed can become a space they can live out their own passions.”
The overall winner will be decided by a panel of shed experts including the founder of the competition Uncle Wilco (Andrew Wilcox), last year’s winner Walter Micklethwait, George Clarke and his expert team; craftsman William Hardie, architect Laura Clark and industrial designer Max McMurdo.
