Not many people are given a shed as a present. Geoff was.
His partner Adelaide bought him the Stilla Willow 12 x 8 Cedar Timber Shed for his family's property at Cann River, in East Gippsland. They keep a caravan on site there, and over time the space around it had filled up the way those places always do. Camping equipment, tools, cooking gear, and the steady accumulation of things that come with a spot you keep returning to.
The shed was her answer to it.
Clearing the Caravan Site
A caravan is a good deal smaller once everything you need for a weekend is inside it. That was the problem Adelaide set out to solve. Rather than working around boxes and bags every visit, the idea was to give all of it somewhere to live.
The Willow 12 x 8 now holds the lot. Camping equipment, the tools, the cooking gear, and the miscellaneous items that never quite have a home. The caravan site itself has gone back to being a place to sit rather than a place to store things.
It is a straightforward use for a timber storage shed, and on a bush block it is the kind of change you notice every single visit.
Timber Made More Sense Than Tin
Adelaide had a clear view on materials, and steel was never really in the running.
Cann River sits in among some of the best bushland in Victoria, and a metal shed would have announced itself against all of it. Timber does the opposite. It reads as part of the setting rather than something dropped into it, which was exactly the point.
Cedar also happens to be well suited to the job. It handles outdoor conditions and is naturally resistant to insects and weather, which counts for something when your shed is standing in bushland rather than a suburban backyard.
The fact that Stilla is designed and made in Australia mattered to her too, alongside the look and the size. All three pointed the same way.
The Details Geoff Noticed
Ask Geoff what stands out and he does not start with the storage.
He talks about how it looks, and about how precise the measurements are. There are no gaps anywhere in it. For a structure that gets left alone for stretches at a time in the middle of the bush, that tight fit is worth more than it sounds. Nothing blows in, nothing works its way through, and the whole thing sits square.
Mostly, though, he likes that it blends into where it stands. From a distance it does not look like something that was delivered. It looks like it belongs there.
Stories Still to Come
The shed is new, so Geoff does not have a good yarn about it yet.
He is fairly confident that will change. His own prediction is that the stories will eventually involve creepy crawlies turning up in surprising places, which is about as East Gippsland an expectation as you could have. Anyone who has spent time on a bush block will know he is probably right.
For now it is doing the job it was bought for. The caravan site is clear, everything has somewhere to go, and the shed looks like it has always been part of the property.
Not a bad present.
You can follow Adelaide at @adelaide_ck
