Garden Rooms

Garden Room Extensions

A garden room is a great way to extend your living space. It naturally incorporates your outside space with your inside space, giving you the best of both worlds, and an additional room to your property that you can use all year round. 

And no, a garden room isn’t a conservatory or an orangery. A garden room can be attached to your house or standalone in the garden, the key here is garden – your garden room is in the garden.

And our garden rooms are beautifully bespoke, hand crafted buildings that will provide you with a luxurious outside space that will give you an additional functional room that you can use however you see fit. 

Install bifold doors that concertina all the way back and your garden room can literally become at one with the garden. And with the unpredictability of the British weather, you’ll be grateful that your garden building can transform from summer outdoor room to winter hygge with the simple pull of a handle.

What can you use a garden room for?

There are so many uses for a garden room that it makes the brain boggle just considering them all: as an outdoor playroom for your kids, as a sunroom for when the sun’s up but the air temperature isn’t, or as a home office. 

And while these are all great ideas, sometimes you just want a statement room that is purely you. So why not use your garden room as: 

– Your hobby room. A garden room is the perfect place to build your model train set in. Or lay out your war reenactment. You’ll be safe in your own hobby room away from little fingers and ‘helpful’ suggestions.

– As a studio to get creative in. It makes a wonderfully light room for painting. For writing. For crafting. Bring your knitting needles, install a comfy chair and click the afternoon away. A soundproofed garden room can provide you with the stillness that you crave to get on with what you love doing, away from the hustle and bustle of family life, surrounded by your beautiful garden. 

– To set up a new business in. Do you love cooking? Why not build in a kitchen? Set up a little workshop with a sewing machine? Or simply install the internet and run a new e-commerce venture. With your very own dedicated office, this garden room will give you the space, privacy and freedom to start your own money making venture. 

– To work out in. If you love exercising but don’t want to have to go to the gym to do it, why not build your own gym in your new garden room? Workout surrounded by nature in a private space where you can bend, stretch, jazzercise or pound the treadmill to your heart’s content. Hang mirrors, plumb in a bathroom, set up a sauna or invest in a hot tub for chilling afterwards.

– A room for your friends. Build a bar, install a pool table, hang a dartboard, set up a card table for poker night. Buy an old arcade game or fill a cupboard with board games. Treat your garden room like your very own social club and have fun with it. 

– A spare room. Install a bathroom, pop in some kitchen essentials and you could make your garden room earn its keep by renting it out on Airbnb. Or it could be a spare room for when friends come and stay, or if you’re in the dog house, or for when your kids want to fly the nest but can’t afford to leave Chateau de Parents. 

– Your library. When you’ve got more books than you know what to do with, why not build your own little reading room in the bottom of the garden? 

How you intend to use your garden room will dictate the practicalities of your garden room, by which we mean, if you intend to use your space in the summer months only, then do you really need to have it insulated? But if you want to use it all year round, it will likely need electricity, heating, ventilation and probably lighting too. And if you’re working in it, you’ll need a wifi connection. 

Connecting your garden to your home

If you want to add electricity or plumb in your garden room you’re likely going to have to secure planning permission beforehand (more on this later). 

There are other things you’ll need to consider too when you connect your garden room to your main house:

– To connect your garden room to mains electricity you’ll need a Part P registered electrician as you’ll need a certificate stating that their work meets the current regulations. 

– If you’re going to install a shower or a tap, you’ll need a plumber to install a fresh water pipe, and a waste water pipe, to and from your garden room and your house.

How to style your garden room

Your garden room isn’t simply a glorified shed. It’s an extension of your house and therefore it will require styling. From a summer sitting room to an outdoors workspace for you, your garden room makes the ideal extra living space your family needs. But sitting in an empty wooden building isn’t fun, or relaxing. 

And to turn your garden room into the luxurious retreat that you know it can be, is as simple as adding a comfy chair, a few throw cushions and a rug, or going all out and building in storage, installing power sockets and lighting. 

You’ll probably want your garden room to reflect the of from the rest of your house, but remember, this is going to be an outdoors room, so it’ll need to be a little more robust. 

For example: 

– The floor you choose will need to withstand you constantly coming in from a wet garden. 

– You may need to hang curtains or shutters as the building will be south facing (to get the most sunlight) and you’ll welcome some shade on particularly hot days. 

– The room may get damp from the cold air in winter, so unless it’s well insulated, don’t leave anything valuable in there. 

– Furnishings should probably be washable – it’s an outside room, and outside can be dirty, especially if small children are involved. 

Have you considered installing a log burner as a way to heat the room?  

Planning permission for your garden room

Typically garden rooms don’t need planning permission, classed as an ‘outbuilding’ they fall under permitted development rules. 

That being said, there are times when you’re going to have to seek planning permission for your new garden room. 

For example, if you’re intending on renting it out on Airbnb or using your garden room as your guest room, then you will need to seek planning permission as your garden room won’t be an outbuilding any more. 

When else do you need planning permission to build a garden room?

– If your garden room is going to be taller than 4m (if you’re installing a dual pitch roof, 3m tall for any other type of roof). 

– If your garden room is within 2m of a neighbour’s boundary and it is going to be over 2.5m tall. 

– If you’ve extended your property since 1948. You’re not allowed to build on more than half of your home’s land without seeking planning permission. 

– If you’re planning on installing the garden room further forward than the main front wall of the original house. 

– If you’re planning on installing a veranda or a balcony. 

– If your raised decking is going to be higher than 300mm

– If your home is anything other than a house i.e. if your home is a flat, or a maisonette, or if your home has had a change of use from what it was originally built for i.e. it has been converted into a house.

– If your home or any of its buildings are listed. 

– If your home is in a conservation area, within a national park, AONB, a world heritage site or on the Norfolk or Suffolk Broads.