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Is Your House Too Small? Think About A Wooden Garden Office: The Cheaper, Stress-free Route
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One Monday morning last March, at 7.30am, Gemma Thompson’s ‘nightmare’ began. With the clanging of metal poles and shouts of the scaffolders reverberated around the bedroom, the seeds of doubt were planted about the wisdom of a loft conversion. Before the week was out she was at the end of her tether, and before the month was out she and the kids had packed up and decamped to her mother’s.
The conversion lasted three months and ended up costing almost £30,000. Was she displeased with the work? No, save for a couple of small plumbing issues, the work was acceptable standard. It was the ‘chaos and disruption’, the noise, dust, the loss of amenity (not to mention privacy). ‘Had I known I definitely would have had second thought.’
By contrast when Gemma’s friend, psychotherapist and mother-of-three Liz Malloy needed a therapy room so she could practice from home, the job was completed in less than three weeks at a fraction of the cost. Her solution: a garden office.
Thompson admits she wrestled with feelings of envy when she saw the ‘beautiful, warm, light and spacious’ garden office building her friend her acquired for relative ‘peanuts’. Lined, insulated and double-glazed throughout, with it’s own shower room and toilet, the room also serves as spare bedroom when guests come to stay. ‘Couples mention the romance aspect,’ says Malloy, ‘while their kids like the fact they aren’t being scrutinised!’ She emphasises the positive psychological spin-offs to working at home but not in the home: the peace and quiet, the calming effect of nature, the improved productivity.
More and more people looking for that extra bit of space are utilising that unloved corner of the garden, rather than the constricted zone of the loft. The modern wooden garden building is a far cry from the draughty old sheds of yore, and can add just as much value to your home as building upwards. Whether used as a conventional office or as playroom, games room, home cinema or gym, a specialist installer will have an ‘off-the-peg’ design or draw up a bespoke version according to your needs. You can pay as little as £3,000 for a basic model, or up to £60,000 for the more palatial versions.
But the best thing from Gemma Thompson’s point of view, is that the mess and dirt is outside.
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