Home office - well built garden room or try and squeeze in to an extension

[Beachness]

DH works from home full time, currently uses a single bedroom as a home office but we need to reclaim that as a bedroom space.

We would like to extend the downstairs to make a bigger kitchen/diner plus an additional accessible shower room and a utility on the ground floor.

We may be able to squeeze in a home office (needs to be a fully enclosed room!) but at quite a big sacrifice to the downstairs space.

Would a better option be to add in a separate stand alone garden room (fully insulated for winters & summers) or really try to squeeze an office in to an extension? Garden is big enough.

I WFH occasionally and happy to plonk myself wherever. Just not an option for DH.

Thanks but the plan is they won’t be here much longer. Had a big fire and lost loads of outbuildings. Once dh gets the new shed put up the bikes will be going in there.

It is great. When aforementioned adult DS has vacated the place (tomorrow morning) I will tidy it up and take a photo.

I've just started a new job and some of my new colleagues thought the wooden background on my Zoom calls were a virtual background.

We had a garden office built last year for my DH to work from. It gets him away from the noise of our young DC and allows him to feel like he’s “going to work”. It was from cabin master. We actually went to grand designs last year and got a good discount on it. It’s fully insulated and a lovely room. Also has an ac unit installed which can be controlled from an app. Very pleased with it!

@ThisTipsyGreyCrab which company was that from and what size is it? We’re considering one.

We had the same dilemma. Ultimately we went for a garden room.. timber with brick, insulated with wifi. heating and aircon… it’s a permanent structure and was much larger than the extension would have been.. as well as cheaper due to no steels involved.

it’s great. I ‘go to work’ as other people have mentioned. And it has multiple uses.. treadmill is in there, sofa bed for teenage sleepovers.. we get far more out of it than if we’d have squeezed in an office.

oh and it has out value on the house as it’s classed as a permanent structure.

meant to add… it was purpose built by a local builder not off the shelf has a window and a bifold.
Is warm in the winter, cool in the summer.
Ours is. 5x4m
Another garden room pro is that there is less disruption to your home whilst it’s being built.

Thank you @ThisTipsyGreyCrab and @andthat

Completely ignorant question but is it the timber and brick that make it a permanent structure above all other considerations? What was the ballpark cost if you don’t mind sharing?

The size is approx 6m x 3m and it’s from Cabin Master. Will double check with DH as to how much it cost. Soo much has happened since including a second DC and I can’t remember!

@Beachness I said I was going to share a photo of my garden office when it was a bit tidier. It is now, but I realise the photo is pretty personal and possibly identifying (unlikely but still). I don't think we can send photos by PM.
In any case, while I love it, it's nothing out of the ordinary for a wooden garden office so I don't think it will influence your decision.

This is really helpful. Thanks to those that have shared.

We were going down the home office route but circumstances mean likely not possible now.

We were going to be c.£40k for a 6m x 2.5m extension that included a 2m x 2m office with extra internal space for the living room.

Looks like a garden room could be a more financially pleasing proposal that works.