Tell me about your summer house

[TheBeesKnee]

Bought first property in 2019 as a starter home. Miss terrace, everything needs doing. We've been doing it up over the past 3 years and have a baby on the way.

The house has one living room and a kitchen diner. 2 bedrooms and a tiny box room. We can't extend any further as the kitchen is already an extension.

Not really in a position to be buying a bigger house especially with prices rising and interest rates being what they are.

We could buy an end of terrace house locally which is slightly bigger than ours but we wouldn't really gain much living space, certainly not an extra reception room.

We'd love to do the loft eventually but that doesn't solve the issue of limited living space. We're already struggling to find space for the pram and so on, no idea where big toys will go.

Anyway, I was thinking about a summer house. You can buy them for £2-8k which I think is doable. We could maybe even run it with solar power to avoid digging electrical trenches?

My thinking is that it could be an extra living room and office for me when I eventually go back to work.

Does anyone have one and how is it used? What kind of things do you have hooked up there? Is it possible to insulate it well etc to use all year round? How practical is it to use when it's raining for example?

We had one built about 6 years ago. I think including the concrete base, a bit of decking and some sleepers to border it the cost was about 15k. Wooden ones need repainted every 3 years or so. Ours is due to be painted again this year. At first it had plenty of use but in the last couple of years not so much. We only used it last year for a handful of hot nights - it's nice to sleep out there when the house is holding heat at night during hot spells. You need to run electricity and also Internet to them otherwise usage will be much restricted. Some of the cheaper ones we looked at were just glorified sheds really. I suggest solid wood ones made from at least 30mm timber are the way to do it so that they last

I agree with pp. your prunes are too low. If you want to use it you must have insulation, electric, wi fi, and it must be comfortable with lined walls and lights etc. solar panels are not cheap either. Plus you need a base.

Sorry, my prunes?

Presume prunes is a typo for prices? Would agree: you might be able to buy the basic kit for the price in your OP, but I wouldn’t think of a kit summerhouse as a working base for anything other than moderately warm days when you’d quite like to be out in the garden. They’re usually not very sturdy or insulated against cold or heat, it would be a bit like working in an attractive garden shed comfort wise. You’d be looking at at least double your top end, or possibly triple, for it to have a proper base and get it insulated etc.

How handy are you? After similarly realising we’d need to shell out about £20k to get one professionally built, we built our garden office ourselves basically following YouTube tutorials. Had you told me a couple of years ago I’d even attempt such a thing, I’d have laughed in your face: but I’m actually pretty proud of our work! It’s not the prettiest looking because to cut costs DH utilised a door and windows bargained out of a neighbour’s skip as the builders were heaving them in; but it’s double walled and fully insulated and DH worked out in it all the last winter perfectly comfortably with just a small electric heater on a couple of hours a day. The hardest part was definitely digging the trench for cables. All in it came in at just under £5k for all the materials, new junction box etc to spur the electricals from the house, and the electrician who signed off our work.

Attached photos show construction stages:

@TheBeesKnee Oh dear! I meant prices! (Not prunes!) You won’t get much that’s habitable for £2-8000.

@ComtesseDeSpair What a fabulous job you made of that.
Laughed at prunes 😁