Garden room/summerhouse for all year advice please

[WildFlowerBees]

We're re doing our garden and we are looking at having a garden room put at the bottom to use all year round.

There's so much to choose from look at I need a starting point really.

Looking for something eco friendly

Low maintenance

Insulated so not freezing in winter (underfloor heating maybe?)

It'll face SE

Want to use it as a space to relax in, have friends over and have a quiet drink and for dh and I to enjoy over winter as a quiet space.

Realistically how much use does a garden room get in winter if it's not a space for working?

Trying to work out what we actually need.

Thank you

We have a log cabin/summerhouse which we built during the first Covid lockdown. It was intended for two things: for use temporarily as storage, during some building work we were planning to have done, and ultimately to work in. But due to COVID we ended up having it for a couple of years before it got used for those things.

During that time we really enjoyed having it available for other uses. We really enjoyed having it as an extra space outside the rooms we usually used in the house. We didn't use it that much, but it was lovely having somewhere away from the house where we could set something up. We played board games in there a few times; we decorated it for parties for Halloween and children's birthdays; we put a too-big-to giftwrap Christmas present in there to be 'discovered'; we watched films in there a couple of times, which the children loved.

We probably only used it once every couple of weeks, to be honest, bit we did really enjoy having it. Part of the appeal was undoubtedly the 'lockdowm effect ': we were missing being able to go out or travel, and the summerhouse was somewhere out of the ordinary that we could still go to. We don't use it so much now - the fact I work in there most days at the moment probably means I don't want to spend leisure time there! I suspect the children might use it as a hangout away from parents as they get older, though.

In terms of year-round use, although the walls are only wood, they're thick-ish 'logs' 44mm thick. The floor and ceiling have 50mm of celotex boards in them, so not up to building regulations but somewhat insulated. This means it is easy to heat up to a comfortable temperature with an oil filled radiator. Keeping it at 18⁰C during office hours cost about £25 for the whole of the coldest month this year, in the west of England. Obviously heating it only occasionally as needed would be much cheaper.

Thank you for the good info @CasperGutman I'm wondering how much of it will be novelty and how much use it'll get in the deepest winter when our home will already be warm and cosy.

We did think about a gardenroom but had the same thoughts. Why would you want to leave a nice warm house?

OP, are you looking to build one or buy a pre built one?

Pre fab, I like the idea of no maintenance and a living roof.