Do you call it a shed or a garden office?

[Dyrne]

Inspired by this article:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55845735

To me a shed is something you store garden tools/general crap in. It’s basically 4 wooden walls and a roof. It would be more or less watertight but not insulated or anything - you can get them from B&Q for a couple of hundred quid. You could run electrics but most wouldn’t bother and would use a torch or something. Definitely not suitable for someone to sit in.

What the article is talking about is more what i’d call a garden office - it can cost £££, it has electrics/lighting etc, and it’s set up for someone to spend hours at a time in there (so nowhere for spiders to crawl in, somewhat insulated etc).

Is it just me? What does everyone else call them?

(And if you’re about to ask me if I have nothing better to do with my time than ruminate over such a pedantic point... the answer is clearly no, I don’t )

I agree with you.

We are converting the garage, and adding a shed.

Then the garage will be two rooms split into a workshop and then a proper wall and uPVc door into a home gym/office.

Both areas will be insulated, have a decent floor (obviously different but actual floors) and have electricity and ventilation.

The shed which will house the garden equipment, toys and bikes...will be a shed. A wooden or metal structure with no insulation other than bare requirements to prevent rotting..

Like do you have a drive (no dropped kerb) or accept it's a patio with aspirations...?

We have two sheds. One is an actual shed with lawnmower and garden supplies in, the other is DH's "garden office", like the first photo in that article. Although it's more like a lab than a study, with mills and lathes in. Insulated and powered, with upvc double glazed window and door with security locks and alarm. Mine has single glazed window and no power (although it is painted inside as well as out and does have fairy lights in, somewhat whimsically).

We call them both "shed" for brevity. Your shed and my shed. There is a drastic difference in the cost obviously, but it's a faff saying "your home office", so we just say shed.

agree. we have a shed for garden stuff + a garden office (also used for storage but it stays a bit drier

DP refers to his as a shed. People who haven’t seen it probably imagine him working out in some freezing cold rickety single-ply outbuilding. I presume he uses the word shed for brevity; although of course it could be that he likes to generate sympathy from those who think I make him live most of his life in the garden shed!

Ours is a Log Cabin, complete with double glazing, insulation, lighting, power and internet.

If it's wooden it's a shed to me, regardless of what's in it. Or a play house of course, depending on style.

If someone referred to an 'office in the garden' I'd assume it was built from proper bricks.

I'd call that sort of thing a cabin, /log cabin. Definitely not shed! A garden office maybe but only when there's a laptop in it.

Haha, we have a garden room which is furnished and can be used as whatever we want and we call it the shed because it sounds a bit wanky calling it The Garden Room.

It’s also not very posh at all compared to the office type structures in that article.

DH's home office is referred to as the Cabin.
The shed is the building with all his tools in and the lawnmower.

DP works in our shed. We insulated it, painted it, carpeted it, it has electricity and he’s got wired internet connection in there. From the outside it is just a shed but from the inside it’s a proper room. We still call it the shed 🤷🏻‍♀️

I have a garden office and it's next to the shed. But ours is a non-wooden design with lots of windows, it doesn't look like a shed. The shed looks like a shed.