Garden Offices - Good or Bad Idea?

[mudflap]

Hubby is self employed and currently pays around £3k/annum on office rental.

A friend mentioned building a wooden office in our garden and using this for his place of work.

This seemingly has a few benefits, for one he'll be at home more and able to take care of our child when I am not able to get time of work. No commute and the cost savings, along with some tax benefits for using our house as a place of work.

Has anyone themselves gone down this route? I would love to hear about any pitfalls associated with this. Still early stages but something we're certainly looking into.

We have a log cabin in the garden that DH works from. We have had it for 9 years. We had one in our previous home.

I cannot see any disadvantages to having it. When we sold our last home the woman who bought wanted it for the cabin so she could put her teenage son in it so it is an asset.

in addition to the cost of the cabin you need to factor in the cost of running electrics to it and broadband connection etc. Ours is fairly basic as it is not insulated but we have a couple of electric heaters and it is lovely and warm and it is lovely in the summer. We have decking at the front and we sit outside and have tea. I absolutely love it and when my DH gives up work in the next couple of years, I am going to claim it and use it as my summerhouse. It has saved us a fortune. Hope this helps

Watching....DH is desperate for a "shed" to work in, but I'm not convinced it would get enough use to justify the cost.

We love ours. It's a proper wood clad garden office with super duper insulation and definitely an asset. It's the footprint of the old garage as that saved money on the foundation being laid. Dh is also self employed. Highly recommend the company if you're in East of England.

If his office is in a different building how will he be able to help with childcare any more than he does now? We have an office in a different building, drives me bonkers that he disappears every 5 minutes to the office so is out of the house = not looking after children. Also means that if only one parent home we can't use the office as someone needs to be in the house to keep an eye on the kids!

Having dh work from home definitely means he is more available for family time for us. He doesn't need to leave until just before 9am and is there at 5pm. And he comes in for lunch and breaks, so I get a break if we're in. But he also has the kids two days, as do I, so he is very used to much better at the childcare aspect. I expect it depends on the family, and the business. Dh works in software and it's just him.