Garden Room Design – A QUICK GUIDE ON WHAT YOU NEED TO CONSIDER

When it comes to considering what you want in your garden room, it’s hard to nail down exactly what you need the first time around.

Here’s a handy list of things to consider if you’re thinking of building a garden room.

1. Internet/Connectivity

Will your room be an escape from the house or will it be more functional, like an office or a gym? If it’s the latter, it’s worth paying a bit extra to bring in broadband into your garden building. If it’s a home office you want, you’ll need resilient broadband speeds and by pulling in data, you’ll have no issues with upload/download speeds. Equally, if you’re having a garden gym built, you’ll likely want to have a TV on or music playing in the background. Broadband will future-proof your space. Pricing starts from £300.00.

2. Heating & Ventilation

All of our garden rooms come with an electric radiator, keeping you warm through the colder months. In addition, one thing that’s been quite popular is installing air-conditioning units as well.

These have served as both heating, cooling and air-purifying, enhancing the air-quality of your room. For what they give you, these are relatively inexpensive (from £1,200.00 – supply and fit). If you’re having a garden gym, an air-con unit will really help. On top of this, our fixed pane windows and sliding doors come with trickle vents to help with ventilation.

3. Storage

So you’ve decided on a home office and despite most companies adopting cloud technology to share files/documents, you still need shelving or some sort of storage. Thinking ahead always helps as the walls we build are typically timber-framed, 1220mm wide per panel, with 600mm centres. If you plan on any shelving you might find some plasterboard fixings aren’t secure enough to hold the weight of the shelves.

By planning ahead, we can add load-bearing supports and additional noggins in to the frame making it structurally sound.

Additionally, if you plan on a separate room for storage, we can partition it off for you with stud work or a hidden door.

4. Flooring

As you’d expect, all of our rooms come with a choice of flooring, from laminate through to engineered wooden flooring and for more bespoke rooms, we offer tiled flooring.

Choosing the right flooring is key, as you may want to add specialist gym flooring or underfloor heating. It’s worth noting that not all types of flooring are compatible. A lot depends on the type of underfloor heating you choose (electric or water based – explained in another post here).

If your room is going to see high footfall, you may want to go with a thicker engineered flooring (12-14mm). If you’re looking to keep to a lower budget, laminate flooring is a great option.

Looking for something really special, why not go with a herringbone flooring like these two.

5. Sunlight

Making sure you get enough natural daylight into your room has to be high on your list of priorities but you must also consider shading as well. Some gardens are naturally dark and over-shadowed by trees, hedges or properties and so opening up aspects of the build with glazing is key to enjoying natural daylight. However, if you have a garden that’s a sun-trap, especially south-facing gardens, you’ll want to ensure you have some shade.

As part of our offering, we can provide you with a quote for integrated blinds that sit inside the window frame, controlled by a magnetic lever (see an example from our Instagram page here).

6. Water

Do you intend on building a games room, a bar or even an office? You may want to think about whether you need water services installed.

Pulling water in at a later stage may prove a little difficult once the flooring and groundwork have been completed. If water is a requirement, you’ll need to check with your local planning officer, who will likely insist that everything complies with building regs.

NEED MORE HELP?

Contact our design team to discuss your requirements, ideas and any questions you may have by choosing an option below