Inspiration/ insight for 1970s/1980s shed

Hi all,

Hoping this is the best sub-forum, nowhere else seemed quite right.

I've got a new house. New to me but technically old - late 70s/early 80s build with a few extensions this century. Behind it is a shed which is almost as old. About 3.5*7.0m, oregon frame, fibro skin (not asbestos) and steel roof. Unfortunately the previous owner just used it to dump junk and didn't take care of it. 2/3 of the house guttering flowed into a gutter down one side of the shed which has been rusted out for many years. Part of the wall on that side has smashed and the frame is collapsing (honestly not sure which happened first).

Fixing all of that is easy (in principle anyway). But I'll be left with a space to fit out. From the outside the shed looks of it's time, and I like that, so I'd like to see if I can keep the appearance inside consistent. So here's the question: can anyone recommend me books or other material that cover workshop design of that period (preferably with photography)?

For example, some may remember this partwork. My grandfather had a few issues of it and they always appealed to me so in 2021 I bought a complete run off eBay for $65. That might seem like a lot, particularly as partworks are seen as a ripoff (including by me). But a) if I'd bought it new it would have cost around $600 and b) I learnt more about my tiled roof from two issues of The Knack than I did from hours of research online and have fixed several problems as a result. The relevance is that it came out in the early 80s and captures that style, I'm going through it for workshop inspiration now.

Thanks in advance!

what about Readers Digest DIY manuals from the 70s or 80s ? There are many copies online or Peter Harris's odd job book

I subscribed to a full series of 24 hardcover The Knack books in the mid 80's after we had had our first home built and I was considering options for shedding etc. These seemed to be based on a pommy magazine and I would date the material to late 60's/early 70's. I am generally very sentimental about books, magazines etc that I have acquired over time, but these and a few individual electronics mags were the only literature that didn't make the trip when we moved 8 years ago, they were of interest when being acquired, as a newbie to home ownership, but just how dated they were became apparent over the years.

I would suggest that you want to make sure that the fibro on your shed does not contain asbestos, not just assume that it does not, it sounds like it was built around the time when asbestos was being phased out, but that in itself is not a guarantee that it is asbestos free.

With regard to repairs etc to the shed, they could be made using similar structure etc and modern materials, (pine framing and current generation cement sheet cladding etc).

Thanks both, appreciate the responses.

The Reader's Digest books look like they might have some useful material, I've now bookmarked a few of those and some similar titles on archive.org to check out. Can't find much on the Peter Harris book, but the few records Google returns say it was from 1998 so possibly not what I'm after.

I did read something on another forum about there being two encyclopaedia-style sets called The Knack, one a cutdown of this magazine and another entirely separate. But the magazine is definitely British and according to my 1984 Australian copies was originally published in the UK in 1981. The photography shows a lot of things like tools, fashion, and furniture that look late 70s to me so I assume it was either written or revised then. Sounds like it might be interesting to see the books you had and compare them.

There's no asbestos, I had it tested before buying the property. Who would assume something like that? I'm no pinnacle of health but I'm pretty happy to keep my lungs as they are.

That is indeed the plan. Helpfully I have access to some surprisingly good second hand treated pine. Though there's a partition wall toward one end of the shed which I intend to remove, it's still sound and has the same sheeting as the exterior so if it comes apart in good condition I may reuse some of the material.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rassilon256

There's no asbestos, I had it tested before buying the property. Who would assume something like that? I'm no pinnacle of health but I'm pretty happy to keep my lungs as they are.

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Not that I doubt whoever tested your shed for asbestos, but as malb said, your shed was apparently built around the time asbestos was being phased out, at least in NSW. (I'm not sure of the phase out dates in other parts of Australia.)

Personally I'd not be confident that a fibro shed was truly "asbestos free" until I knew that every "fibro" sheet had been individually tested and declared "OK".
To my mind, your shed was built during the phase out period, so there is a risk that some of your sheet's sheeting contains asbestos and some does not. If your asbestos tester only tested one or two sheets, the chance that the sheet(s) tested just happened to be the "asbestos free" ones is too great for my personal peace of mind.

That's how I felt too. I ensured samples were taken from every sheet and tested by a NATA accredited lab. Health and safety is central part of my day job and I work in a NATA accredited lab, so I'm familiar with both of those things. Incidentally, although sheeting was one of the first products to be phased out, the phase-out period in Australia only began around 1983 (as ian referred to, states took action at slightly different rates) and the total ban didn't occur until 2003. If I'm being pedantic, blue asbestos was banned in 1967 but white and brown remained in use to different degrees until the total ban. All of which led me to being very thorough when dealing with a structure I believed to have been built prior to 1983.

Another moral of that story is - pay attention to insurance companies' actuaries. Their premiums reflected concerns about climate change, tobacco smoking, leaded petrol, and yes, asbestos, long before anyone else started worrying about these things.

While I applaud that everyone is concerned about safety issues, this is not a thread about asbestos, and I have made it clear that asbestos is not something I need to deal with. Does anyone else have advice related to my far more trivial and somewhat odd query?