So… that’s a glorified shed

Previous post: And so it begins… I need more space

Once you’ve decided that you need a garden office, the first thing most people do is go to the internet. You type in “garden office” and the responses are great. It all of a sudden looks really easy and cheap to buy a garden office…

e.g. https://dunsterhouse.co.uk/garden-offices

Some “cabins” and “offices” but… really?

Then you find other websites and find a lot more “flashy” websites showing off some really impressive features…

e.g. https://www.thegardenoffice.co.uk/

Oooooh shiny!

All of a sudden you’re in a world of “why is this so much more expensive than that?” and “that glorified shed is 15% of the price so… why is that?”.

Then you notice things like “Fully Insulated” and “Installation” and “full design capabilities” that you don’t get with the self-build glorified sheds.

And you end up asking yourself “why should I spend £20k on a very nice room, when I can spend £3k, and build myself a [glorified] shed, and buy a nice heater?”

If you’re anything like me, you start to wonder what the trade offs are.

And also, if you’re anything like me, you start to wonder at the environmental impacts of all these things.

And when you start to wonder about the environmental impacts, these buildings all of a sudden become really really complicated.

Why do I want a garden office?

So, I spent a bit of time working out why I wanted a garden office:

1. I needed a space to do actual work. Simply put, a desk and a computer, and quiet where I could have video calls as well.
2. I needed a space that would work in summer, winter and in the evenings, so a “glorified shed” without good insulation or heating would not be good, so I needed to consider that
3. I needed the space to work in the garden and be usable by others. It wasn’t just going to be “my space” but might have to be repurposed as a garden space. The garden isn’t big. This is a big consideration.
4. As environmentally friendly as possible. I’m not just going to concrete (bad) over a bit of the garden and dump a plastic filled monstrosity on it, however “aesthetically pleasing” it might look. Let’s see if it’s possible to make it good for the planet and work for us too.

This felt like a good set of rules to work with.

Unfortunately, this basically ruled out a lot of options. I think I might have to explain in the next post.

Next post: Brr… it’s cold outside!