January is often the month when we dream of working for ourselves. Here we speak to two entrepreneurs who have done just that, developing successful businesses during the pandemic...

Working away in our home office has become a familiar part of life over the last two years, whether the ‘office’ in question is decked out with an ergonomic swivel chair and spacious desk or simply incorporates a laptop and the living room sofa.

However, for those of us who really want the ultimate home working set up, a business in south Cumbria is offering outdoor rooms which can be used as gloriously airy and sustainable offices, as well as for a host of other purposes.

Naked Build Co is the brainchild of founder and chartered surveyor Chris Shepard who set it up just over a year ago.

Prior to starting the business Chris worked for the National Trust in Cumbria for 20 years. This involved managing a wide range of projects, including the construction of The Footprint building, near Windermere, which was built using sustainable and reclaimed materials such as straw bales, clay cob walls and reused tyres.

It was partly this project which increased his focus on buildings that complement and enhance the environment and which planted the seed for Naked Build Co, which makes a range of bespoke and ‘off the shelf’ outdoor rooms which people can use as studios, offices or extra living space in their gardens.

Chris says he was inspired by a house-building system named WikiHouse - in which standardised timber components can be digitally designed and then rapidly assembled – and developed a number of designs for these habitable rooms in collaboration with the Architecture Unknown practice, in Manchester.

"I pulled on my varied experience to create beautiful nature-based cabin buildings that could be used for the garden, for glamping units, or a range of uses for small businesses,” he says.

"I had harboured an idea of working for myself and this was the right entrepreneurial opportunity to think about how we can build far more sustainably than we do and make a difference for ourselves as well as nature.”

In the WikiHouse system, people use open source software to access house designs with the plywood frames cut to purpose and assembled in a matter of days or weeks.

"We have developed the same idea and refined it for smaller buildings, creating our own specific designs,” says Chris.

As well as collaborating with Architecture Unknown, Chris is also working with Ulverston community interest company Digital Woodoo, who cut the parts for the rooms with a CNC machine.

Naked Build Co offers three standard outdoor room designs - the Hygge Hut, the Scandi and the Coorie Cabin - as well as helping develop individual builds which can even be self-assembled by a lifting the pieces into place by hand.

Chris says the focus is always on sustainable sourcing, reducing the amount of materials used, as well as adding features such as ‘wildflower green’ roofs - with plants on top of the buildings - or ‘living walls’, the same idea but on the sides.

"You can have wildlife on the roof and a vertical veg patch on your wall and so you've got extra space, a garden and your own food growing,” says Chris.

Current clients include someone looking to develop a “meditation and writing studio” and a hotel which is considering developing cabins for accommodation. Chris hopes in time the business could move into working with people to enable them to build their own homes and even housing developments.

"My bigger vision is to see the innovative and empowering WikiHouse system established in housing development with those who would benefit; developers, housing associations or community land trusts,” says Chris, who is already in conversations with a number of such organisations.

He hopes Naked Build Co can play a part in making building sustainable homes on a larger scale a more common part of the housing offer in the UK.

"It needs one or two examples to break the mould and to show the way for the future," he says.

Another Cumbrian who set up a sideline business during lockdown is Ben Queen-Fryer. He and his wife Lizzie own the Dog & Gun, Skelton, near Penrith, which was named Cumbria Life Dining Pub of the Year in 2019 and 2020. It also has a Michelin Bib Gourmand, the only one in Cumbria. Three years ago the couple realised they wanted to sell ‘localish’ soft drinks that matched the ethos of our food – but couldn’t find anything suitable. So they started looking at making their own cordials…and the Queen Fryer business was born.

“We spent around a year working on different flavours combinations and then served them up in the bar to see what guests thought of the various combinations. But it all really came together during lockdown because I had time to be able to devote myself to the development of the drinks. We chose to create the grapefruit and blackcurrant flavoured drinks primarily as they were totally different from anything else on the market, which meant they would immediately stand out and they were also designed with the idea of mimicking the choice people make between either red or white wine,” said Ben.

“The two recipes have been developed by us, but they are loosely based on the some of the drinks my grandma who lived in Grange -Over- Sands used to make for me when I was little, including a homemade blackcurrant juice she used to make with berries from her garden. I wanted to create a cola style drink but with depth, so I decided to revisit that old blackcurrant juice recipe and use it as the base flavour and then added traditional cola spices. The grapefruit needed to be completely contrasting, so I went for a full-on citrus drink with ginger as the main accompanying flavour,” he said.

“Quite simply our drinks are very different to everything on the market at the moment. We don’t buy in microfiltered or pre-pasteurised juices, which means we only use fresh fruit, which we then press ourselves and then cook down into a cordial adding spices to add a depth of flavour to the finished drink. When it’s being bottled, we only add water to the cordial in very strictly measured ratios, which means that we can deliver consistency of flavour and quality time and time again. It also means that we can control the entire process and that nothing is outside our control. “

They’ve got big plans to extend production this year. “We plan to increase the drinks range in early 2022, adding two new flavours to the range. Once we develop a larger customer base, we plan to move production to dedicated unit, still in Cumbria, which will be far more practical for the large volume manufacture of our drinks range. Ultimately, we want the company to become one of the leading drinks producers in the county.”