If you bought a garden office due to remote working over lockdown, do you still use it now?

[MovingToPlan]

I've worked remotely for years, and at the moment use an attic room for my office. We are moving soon, and the new house has a much bigger garden, so I'm considering a garden office instead of a room in the house this time.

I'm really keen on the idea now, but I wonder how I'll feel in the depths of winter. Or if the shine will have worn off even sooner than that!

If you've have a garden office for a few years or more, how do you feel about it now? Has it kept you warm and dry in bad weather? Is it a greenhouse in summer? Any and all experiences would be appreciated. Thank you.

Omg sorry can I please follow this with interest as I was about to start a thread about the same thing! I am also wondering if i’d be cooked during the summer as my garden is a sun trap.

Have you been looking at any specific garden offices?

Our new garden is south facing so I'd probably have a similar issue, and a lot of the types I've seen seem to be very big on sliding glass doors, huge windows, etc. That's all well and good to give the occupant a sense of space and nice views, but not so sure about the insulation aspects!

South facing is easy to manage - you put the office at the bottom of the garden facing the house!
The windows are now North facing, so no heat trap.

I have a full brick built office in my garden. It isn't at the bottom of the garden. It's about 15m away. It has a loo and a log burner and everything.

I still don't use it. I sit at the kitchen table.

Not in that position, but I would rather be in bricks and mortar for work as the temperature would be better (I lived in a mobile home for several years) and keep as much space as possible in the garden. Otherwise every time I was in the garden I would be thinking about work. A spare room is easier to avoid!

I did think about it, but then the cost of building anything went up and I had been keen on bricks and mortar both for comfort and to be more sure to not lose the money I spent on it. I was concerned that something that was just a standard garden room would need to be replaced after 20 years and so would be more of a depreciating asset.

We run a business aligned to the building trade and have various garden office type buildings with a fair amount of glass.
We have a Daikin heater/ air conditioning system installed to keep comfortable.
HTH.

I’ve hardly looked at anything, as my husband is so far refusing. But our issue is we have run out of bedrooms to use as an office, we both wfh but also have 2 small kids, and there are windows of the day when the kids are home when someone is trying to work downstairs, and i don’t think it works. We just need a small space even just to have work calls. A friend in property development sent me this, where you can choose different sizes https://dunsterhouse.co.uk/garden-offices/dominator-insulated-garden-room-w2-3-x-d2-3

Yes I wonder if they will be something of a white elephant in terms of spending? They are expensive to build and not convinced people actually use them!

We use ours but built it ourselves. Its well insulated and has a small heater. It faces north east.

It does get warm in summer but, to be fair, so does our house and its not much different to the house. Although when it was super hot (35 plus degrees), we put a shade up on its flat roof.

I don't have one but my colleague who does still uses hers every day.

I have one. Bought with house and gave it full renovation as it was in disrepair. It's wonderful now and used variously as basic gym, office or quiet room to relax. Electric heater which I'm thinking of upgrading to an Everhot stove. Used power line system for WiFi which is now perfect for streaming etc. Love it.

We have a dunster house one 5m by 3m built on the foundations of our old ugly garage.

I use it to meet clients once a week and as an office once a week. DH uses it 2 days a week. The kids have used it to revise in before GCSEs and a levels. We also dry all of our clothes in there when we can use the line using a heated area. Every month one of the teens will use it to have mates around and we've used it for gaming nights.
My manager uses his 5 days a week.

Worth it for us.

I built my own workshop, and have the intention of building a garden office when funds allow. The workshop is great. It's cool in summer, and warm in winter. It's easy to have a little electric heater, and as long as it is insulated properly, it will be fine.

I bought plans from this youtube channel. Everything you need to know is there, and he's even done a series on building a room alone with basic tools.

https://youtube.com/@thegardenroomguru?si=PNXNRYKq9q2M7iVx

The most expensive parts will be the cladding you choose (cedar is ferociously expensive), and the door (if you go for a patio door with blinds). For the latter, he has a supplier who is very reasonably priced.

I have one (pre pandemic choice). I use it every working day and adore it. It’s totally my space. I have electric heaters and use wifi plugs with timers to control those although the building itself is well insulated.

The garden is south facing, so it’s at the end and shaded on the south side. It can get warm in hot summers but it’s the same in the house and I can throw the doors open on the garden building/ use a fan.

It’s taken my work out of the home and enables me to concentrate on my job rather than procrastinating doing the household jobs I notice indoors.

There’s a massage therapist I know who works out of one all year round and the temperature seems fine. Obviously costs a bit to heat in the winter but the good quality ones are well insulated. I don’t know if hers is in direct sunlight. It’s by the side of her house.

We have one with 2 rooms as both DH and I work from home frequently. Bloody love it! Had it 2.5 years and still use at least 3-5 days every week. The rest of the time I work at my corporate office. Would never choose to sit in the house when WFH.

DH loves his, it's a place to store all his technical kit and he's taken all the tools out of the house. Win win.

We have one from Booths Garden Studios and have been really happy with it. We got the AC unit fitted that heats in winter and cools in summer very efficiently and it's lovely to work in all year round.

My colleague who has one uses his every day. It's a bit parky first thing in the morning in winter but I think he is reasonably comfortable once it warms up. One thing to consider is wifi signal strength if you do a lot of work online.

I would love to have one:

• so I don't get bothered by other people in the house whenever they want to ask something
• so I don't have to answer the door to random callers
• so I don't have to get the cat food when she demands it (but let's be realistic, she would demand to come out to the garden office if I attempted to keep her out of it)

I have a purpose built building in the garden for childminding so a bit different. I just made the investment to make it a proper building, plumbing - electric heating, kitchenette etc. it cost almost 30k 🥵 but it can be used as a studio flat/granny annex in its own right so adds value and is usable all year around. I know if I went for a summer house/ log cabin type thing it could not ve used in the same way, or add the same value to a property. So depends how much you want to invest

We built a garage with an office above it during lockdown, and it's a great space for quiet working, away from the fridge; both DH & I WFH and I can't stand the volume of his Zoom calls. The only time I don't use it is if DH is away - the dogs sit outside the window and stare up at me as if to say WHY HAVE YOU ABANDONED US.

We had a lovely one at our old house and the only worry was all the shed/ garage break-ins that were common in the area. We would wake up at the slightest noise in the garden and worry about the iMacs!

We built ours ourselves and it’s in constant use. DH uses it as his office during the day and it also has our home gym equipment and a work / crafts bench. It’s so well insulated that it only really gets cold on the coldest winter days: we installed a heater but it’s only been used maybe an hour or so a day December - February. When we looked at professional companies, all but the highest level / most expensive options really skimped on insulation, whereas we could choose to use residential grade brilliant stuff.

One of its main benefits for us is that it gives DH a separation from work and home. When he worked in the house he’d often work late into the night and take his breakfast and lunch in there. Now, if I’m home, he comes back up to the house and we have breakfast, morning coffee and lunch together and he sets himself a time in the evening to “go home.” I think that can be really helpful for people who WFH regularly and tend towards being workaholics. We also “go to the gym” on weekend mornings, and I know we were less motivated to work out at home when the gym was in the spare room.