After visiting the Ideal Home Show and Grand Designs Live back in the Spring, I found myself coveting a garden room. Why? Because the amazing designs of garden ‘pods’, chill out spaces, offices and outdoor rooms were the only things that really held my attention while I visited these design exhibition. Sure I came away with oodles of inspiration for interiors too, but the garden zones at each of these shows was where I was truly inspired. I popped into dozens of garden rooms during the day, I checked out the construction methods used and I could have practically lived in one special ‘temporary’ garden room. Yes, I was smitten and when I came home from the exhibitions I dug a little deeper to find out why gardens rooms are just SO appealing right now. Here’s what I found:
Here’s my own “home office” in my garden!
1. They are the ultimate home office space. And I work from home. So it’s no wonder I was so smitten with the garden rooms I saw at those exhibitions. They provided the perfect workspace; a quiet place, away from TV distractions and household chores, where I could work peacefully and uninterrupted. I could store everything I needed in one space, and my paperwork would no longer cover the living room. With electricity and wifi (and a kettle, perhaps!) I would have everything I needed to work efficiently all day long. Plus, my commute would be only about 20 paces away from my back door. Sounds ideal doesn’t it?
2. Garden rooms have multiple uses. I read a news article about the popularity of garden rooms and it opened my eyes to all the uses that a space in the garden offers to the homeowner. Imagine having a cinema room of your own! You may not have space indoors to dedicate a whole room to screening your favourite films, but you CAN build a home cinema in the garden. Similarly, a chill out room, yoga studio, library or photography studio are all possible when you add another room to your garden.
3. Space to be creative. And having that extra space has got me thinking. Why would I use it for an office when it could be a space for ‘all things’ creative? I know that my husband would love to have a space to create art, and a photography studio would be ideal for both of us. A sewing table with plenty of space for cutting fabric is at the top of my list too! With an extra room in the garden we can have a shared creative space without giving up a room in the house and, more importantly, can keep all the messy work tucked away!
4. It keeps your home quiet. Similarly to me wanting to keep our ‘creative mess’ out of the home, many people with families may want to keep noisy activities outside too. After viewing so many different types of garden room at those design exhibitions, I continued to check out all the variations, shapes and sizes online, and I found a great suggestion for using the space on the Oeco Garden Rooms website. They suggest using it as a teenage den, a gaming room and they even create a sound-proof studio – perfect for recording music, or if your little one is learning to play the violin!
5. A spare room for guests. Considering that I can only really afford to buy a 1 or 2 bedroom home, I think that I would probably need a garden room in the future in order to house visitors. If space is already tight in your home, the garden room (which is usually insulated with electric fitted) is a great solution – we could all do with an extra room, couldn’t we? Considering that the cost of building an extension could be tens of thousands of pounds, the garden room could be a cheaper solution to getting a spare room and could save you having to move out of your home into a bigger house.
So, do you need a garden room? What would you use it for? With construction of these kind of garden rooms only taking around 2 weeks, I think it’ll be one of the first things I’ll be wanting to add to my garden after I buy my home! Let me know what you think by leaving me a comment below or tweet me to chat more @Cassiefairy.
This article is a sponsored collaboration. The pink links in the content indicate a sponsored link or information source. The blog post reflects my own experience and the sponsor hasn’t had any control over my content 🙂
