WHEN the Man Cave vs She Shed Challenge structures are revealed at The Great Kiwi Home and Living Show, it won’t just be the contestants in the spotlight. Although fashion designer Tanya Carlson and former All Black Stephen Donald designed the sheds, the hard labour has been contributed by Otago Polytechnic pre-trade carpentry course teachers and students.
Tanya’s She Shed and Stephen’s Man Cave will be on display at the show, which is being held at Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin over the weekend of November 5 and 6. They will be auctioned off by LJ Hooker at 2pm on the Sunday, with the proceeds going to the charities of the contestants’ choice – the New Zealand Beast Cancer Foundation for Tanya, and the New Zealand Movember Foundation for Stephen.
The two celebrities each had free reign to impose their personalities on the sheds, deciding where the doors and windows should be, and the exterior and interior design. Each shed has been built to identical standard designs, measuring 3.9m by 2.4m, with lean-to roofs, and budgets of $10,000 each. The sheds have to be fully liveable in all seasons, and will be weatherproof and insulated.
While the construction work has been done by Otago Polytechnic, Placemakers Dunedin have provided all the materials for the construction of the sheds, and Cooke Howlison Holden selected the contestants and provided Colorados for all the heavy lifting.
"This is another good thing to raise important funds locally," Placemakers Dunedin and Mosgiel owner/operator Justin Macready says. "As the largest trade provider nationwide as well as in Dunedin and Mosgiel, it makes sense for us to be involved"
Graham Burgess, programme manager at Otago Polytechnic, says that being involved in the Man Cave vs She Shed Challenge has been a great experience for the students involved.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” he says. “We haven’t been able to use students on it all the time simply because some of them are getting towards the end of their course. But it has been a good learning experience for a number of them at the different stages.”
Otago Polytechnic have been working on the sheds over the last three or four weeks, turning Tanya and Stephens’ dreams into reality. They have mostly stuck to the designs submitted by the contestants, although there have been a few minor changes.
“We’ve made a couple of alterations,” Graham says. “Each one of them actually showed a bit of clear plastic in the roof. But we were concerned that in this part of the country there was potential for condensation in the middle of winter so we agreed that we wouldn’t put those in. Overall in some ways the plans have developed as we’ve gone along.”
An example of that is a bi-fold window on Stephen’s Man Cave, suggested by the Polytechnic and agreed to by the contestant. The shed construction is on track, with a bit of internal work and some painting to complete. Graham estimates that each shed has required between 25 and 30 hours to get them to this stage. He’s interested to see what the two sheds sell for at auction during The Great Kiwi Home and Living Show.
“There’s a bit of money involved if you were buying the material straight up, and they’ve
got the electrics in them,” he says.
"The two successful bidders will get something very special and well constructed," Justin from Placemakers says.
