Garden room or redecorate the house

[Piplette]

My annual bonus is hopefully coming soon and after frittering it all away on pointless crap last year I want to put it to better use.

Option 1 - put it towards the cost of a garden too which will double as an office for me/dh since we both work from home so often and are fed up trying to find space in the house especially when kids are home. Waiting for costs to be confirmed but ballpark around £15k so would need to borrow the remaining amount (I've just paid off the car so I can afford it).

Option 2 - spend the money on the house instead. We desperately need some proper fitted wardrobes, a new bed, some paint work and other work done. It wouldn't use up all of our money - probability less than half of it.

Doing both isn't feasible and while we will do much of th easier painting ourselves the fitted wardrobes, painting and bed will cost around £3k.

One option will solve the wfh problem but leave us dealing with ongoing storage issues. The other will smarten up the house but I'll still be sat hunched over the kitchen table surrounded by dishes trying to ignore the noise of the washing machine!!

WWYD

Since you spend a large portion of your time, 9-5 Monday to Friday (presumably) on WFH I would focus on option 1, the garden room.

We have a garden room in our house which is a roofed, mostly walled type extension, similar to a conservatory. Is what you're thinking of more like an insulated, powered cabin in the garden? (We have one of those as well!)

You could spend the bonus on upgrading wardrobes and decorating but it won't solve your WFH problem. I do think it would be a better investment for you to address that, unless you can foresee a return to working outside the home. The other works you need doing can be done gradually, you can crack on with the decorating, decor, wardrobes, in due course when finances allow.

Our garden office is properly insulated but still needs plenty time to warm up again each morning (with plug in heaters) when temperatures have really dipped, which is something to bear in mind.

The garden room. Definitely!

I would do the garden office and have a big clear out of clothing and general stuff in the house to see if you can alleviate any of your storage issues in the short term.

This is good advice.

Generally it's better to get rid of stuff than spend more money on storage.

Garden room definitely.

Is there an Option 3?

Option 3 - could another desk area be made elsewhere in house? Ie your bedroom, and then smaller wardrobes?
Or is there space on upstairs landing for desk?

It would be in bedroom, but if you added a desk area with door on or lid to close, you could ‘hide’ when not in use. Ideally fitted wardrobe with desk area with pocket doors to fold away for an open space ( like pictures)

Cheaper than office in garden. Would get you away from kitchen table and washing machine. And tidy house all within budget

Finding another nook that could double as an office would be tricky.. Its a 4 bed house but the rooms aren't particularly big so even just squeezing in everyday storage is difficult.

I think we're going to wait for the costs and make a decision. I have shares maturing in a couple of years too so we could possibly delay the other internal work until then or look at some DIY options.

Clear out is in progress and I've donated loads of clothes, toys and books to charity but still got more to do.

I like this option. You don’t have to borrow for it.

The best money we ever spent was on a garden room in the summer of 2019. My husband uses it as an office and gym, and I chuck him out there when he wants to spend all day watching rugby.

Ours would double as a TV room that the kids can use with their friends or we can use to keep out the way.

Our house also has only a small dining room which has been turned into a play room so this would also open up some options and longer term let us reclaim it as a dining room as the girls could use the garden room as it would only be about 5m from the kitchen door.

Garden room as it’s the lumpier investment so do it while you can. I’d be inclined to stretch a little on the internal stuff and maybe get a 2/3 year interest free credit card get the work done and know it gets prioritised for paying off from any future bonuses, shares etc. both are worthwhile investments in helping the household ‘operate’ more smoothly. Also, if you’ve down all the work I think making sensible decisions on where else you can cut back a bit throughout the year to make small regular payments to the interest free card might help. Of course only do this if your comfortable with all your other spend and what ifs re any unpredicted costs coming up. If you think you would still financially be ok and jobs are secure as they reasonably can be, I would go for it.

Garden room and then declutter and sell unwanted items to put towards redecoration.

Are your 4 bedrooms all in constant use? Any chance of making one of them into the home office instead?

Sorry to jump on.
Is it possible to have a log burner in a garden room?
We have a North facing garden, deeply sloped, which we hate, would need to be fully insulated and heated. Would be away from the house so would really need it’s own source.
Would basically be a man cave/office.