If you have a log cabin/Garden Room please come talk to me about my dilemma.

[Cirice]

I realise this is a nice problem to have firstly.

DH and I live alone, kids flown the nest. We have a reasonable sized home with two rooms set up as bedrooms, one as a dressing room and one as a room I lovingly refer to as my ‘craft room’. I barely use it. It houses the 3D printer, lots of unused craft bits and a sewing machine I can just about thread.

We have an interest in collectibles, the house has them everywhere and recently we’ve acquired a video game machine. I made a comment that as I never really used the craft room I could rip out the current shelves etc, sell the craft stuff and we could build an arcade in there, adding more machines.

DH has suggested we have a 4m x 3m log cabin/garden room and convert that into an arcade come games room.

my concerns are it’s essentially a shed, how is electrical equipment going to do out there? Even if DH tanks it, it’s not going to be cosy. Secondly, I cannot see myself tripping down the garden of an evening in the middle of winter for a quick game of pinball.

So if you have one of these types of rooms, what’s the reality? Do you use them in winter? Are they as cold as I imagine? I really can’t see that the £5k cabin he’s looking at will do what he wants so I’m intrigued!

We have one, it's a craft space come gym come chillout space. It is cold in the winter but we have a little fan heater down there and it is pretty cosy after about 10 mins. We don't have too much electrical stuff in there but what we have has been fine. We love ours.

Ours is made from pretty thick timber (about 30mm) We insulated the floor and roof and it's perfectly possible to sleep out there in winter with an portable oil radiator. Not had any issues with it getting damp either but we do ventilate regularly. It doesn't get as much use as we imagined though, and needs painting every 2 or 3 years. We had a concrete base done for it which was pricey. It's then sat on treated battons to stop rot. We also put guttering on it so that the rainwater doesn't run off the roof on to the base. Cost about 12k all in for 5m x 3m. That was 6 or 7 years ago though.

Double check the planning permission requirements in your area regarding size of the cabin and height. I'm not sure £5k is going to buy you something solid and insulated enough to really use in the winter, I'd imagine at least double that figure plus more for the concrete base and fittings. You'd also need an armoured cable buried under your garden to run power out to it.

It depends if you buy an insulated log cabin or a glorified shed

I don’t think the £5k ones are going to do what you’re wanting it to do.

ive been getting quotes just now for the all singing dancing garden cabin (patio doors etc) as I need it to be a dry space and essentially another room - they’re coming in at £20k for something of a similar size.

could you not clear out your craft things / use the £5k for clever storage to create space inside?

I would not put an arcade machine outside. Make the craft room the games room. When our DS moves out that’s what is happening to his bedroom, I have a full size video game machine and we will make his room in to a games room with DH Grandads pool table, the game machine and all the board games.

We have one that we bought from Dunster House and then assembled. Insulated roof and floor, and my husband installed a storage heater. It is warm enough to use in winter, although in reality we don’t use it much in winter as going to the bottom of the garden in the dark isn’t that appealing! But we do use it as a space to work from home on and off.

A friend of ours has just bought a garden office from this company, its fab and I'm a bit jealous!

www.boothsgardenstudios.co.uk/

This looks amazing.

An area of significant expertise as I’ve just finished building my own. It sounds obvious but you get what you pay for. For 5k you are almost certainly looking at an uninsulated unit that will be a misery in winter I’d think - the dunster house ones are a good example - imagine sitting in a garden shed in minus 2.

log cabin wise you can get insulated ones as other posters have suggested. I’ve not researched cost for these particularly but I’d imagine they’ll be expensive to get a year round habitable genuine log cabin. You’re also likely to need significant foundations / concrete pad as the weight will be greater than with a standard timber build.

If you and your husband are a bit handy / don’t mind having a go, it took me three months start to finish to build a 4 x 4m garden room which included clearing two old sheds and all the building and finishing work. I did this all on my own other than the electrics which had to be done by professionals for building regs, but I am really happy with the result. I’ve used cedar cladding for the front but saved money with metal sheeting for the less visible sides and rear. Used 100mm PIR insulation for roof and 50mm for walls and floor. Have done a reasonable high spec worn flooring and fixtures with a 2k bifold sliding door. Came in about 7 grand in total to give you an idea of materials cost. Similar spec from professionals is in the region of 20-25k and that wouldn’t include clearing the site.

If the above captures your imagination then great resources on YouTube are

Ali dymock
Oakwood garden rooms

I’m a competent DIY’er but my first time building something like this and it’s a lot of hard graft but not outside of the realms of a DIY build.

Thanks all.
DH is a developer so planning and building regs etc isn’t an issue as that’s something he does on autopilot at this point.

You have all confirmed my initial thoughts though that his budget needs to massively increase if he really wants to do this.

We are reasonably handy between us but i’m not sure either of us would have the time. Our daughter is about to complete a house in another county and I can see many weekends of being handy down there unfortunately 😂

Most of what’s in that craft room is unused junk really. Losing it wouldn’t be a loss. I’m now leaning even more towards putting everything in there. Good idea about using the money in there though. I could buy a cupboard instead to store my sewing machine for the odd times I use it.

I shall speak to him tonight and run some thoughts past him. I do love the booths stuff above but lack of prices usually means bloody expensive 😂

There's a section with prices in the link.

Yes prices are on the Booths site. You can also buy them second hand (cheaper obviously) and the company will relocate them for you. I might or might not have done a lot of research as I love my friend's one so much!!

If he's a developer, then why not build it out of block and render? Also if you have a large garden and you can get more than 2m from boundaries you can have a real apex roof.

He works on the design and planning side of it. I wouldn't trust him to build a wall from lego. The back garden isn't huge, I think 4m wide by 3m deep would be the max we could get.

I didn't see the price section, but in my slight defence I was on my phone and not wearing my glasses.... I shall return to the site now and look.

I would be interested to know if anyone has tried any other prebuilt garden room companies as we are looking too and is just so difficult

Ours is 4mtr x 3mtr, perfect for us, we have three desks in there, a big chest freezer & DH’s treadmill. We used Superior Garden Buildings, been so pleased with it, it is double skinned insulated, we had concrete base poured, and cabled up. Our building is double glazed, with solar glass which really helps stop the heat and also retains heat in winter. Ours is painted french grey. two years ago cost £1000 for the base, and £12k for the building, fully installed. I know both would cost more now as materials are very expensive at the moment.

I've got a 12ft by 10 ft summerhouse. It's got a TV in that's been fine, also a log burner for winter but we usually have to open the doors as it does get very warm😃

1st question would be how often do you currently play arcade games??? How often would you play then in future?

MIL bought a kit type garden house about 8yrs ago. It had a concrete slab laid underneath, but didn't feel like it had any insulation. She left a small heater on there year round to stop mould! In a large storm last year- the entire roof was ripped off! Just make sure if you buy a kit thing, that it is tethered down correctly! Apparently whoever put it together didn't strap it down properly. Its been rebuilt, but with insulation and double glazing and its now livable all year round- and no heater round the clock.

We have recently renovated and built a garden room the size of a 2 car garage. Its not finished as yet, but I think they put an armoured cable through the ground when building it- which the electrics will come though. Our plan is to have solar panels on the roof of it, rather than on the house. Would this be an option? We have a flat roof, with about a 15% angle towards the run direction. We are 2m from side fences, and no higher than 2.4m heigh- so didn't need planning permission. A pitched roof would have required it though.

I'd have a think about what you'd use it for, whether the craft room could be converted instead and whether the cost would be worth it.