The rise of home working has naturally revealed the need for a stylish garden office. Many people initially set up a ‘quick fix’ by creating office spaces within any extra space they can find in their homes; kitchen tables, bedroom corners and even just sitting on the sofa with a laptop. The deemed convenience of working from a home office, and not having to install a garden office, was initially an appeal.
The novelty of working from within the home can quickly wear off as people realise that this leads to an unhealthy work home life balance. It is far too easy, when working indoors, to quickly check your emails or finish one last task and lose track of time. One task leads to another, and then you have unwittingly spent your entire evening at your desk.
Throughout your workday, you will be faced with distractions that are not there when working from an office. Televisions, children, unannounced visitors and the constant attraction of jobs around the house that would ‘just take a minute’.
It is important to note that there are many benefits to working from home, both financially and emotionally. You will save money on commuting costs, as well as ‘ad hoc’ buys such as that coffee you buy on the way to and from work. Impromptu visits to the shops, last minute lunch van buys, will cease saving you money. These additional expenses all add up so it won’t take long for you to notice the change in your bank account.
The average commuting time is between 30 minutes and an hour each way, this quickly adds up to over 200 hours a year. By reducing your travel time, you cut down the amount of time away from the family and can enjoy your down time.
Installing a Garden Office into your garden affords you the benefits of working from home, whilst getting rid of many of the negative associations.
1. Plan your Space
The first thing you need to do is look at the layout of your garden and work out the space you have available to build on. Our garden office range starts from as small as W2.5m x D3.5m meaning even those with small gardens can still benefit from a home office.
The first thing you need to think about is what sort of work environment you would like to work from, and what job you will be doing. This may seem like an odd question to ask; but if you have a manual labour job that means you will only use your office for administrative tasks, or you work alone, then you will not need a large Garden Office. A smaller garden office building would work for you, such as our Titania or the Helena.
As you can see from Richard’s Garden Office above, even our smaller Garden Offices have plenty of space to fill with your office supplies. However if you are in a creative role, work in a role that involves hosting client meetings or will be working with a team from your office then you may benefit from one of our larger Garden Buildings.
All of the Garden Offices, or Log Cabins if that is what you choose to work in, do not require planning permission, meaning you can place them anywhere within your garden to suit your personal preference.
2. Location, location, location
The second aspect of planning a Garden Office is to think about the location of your Garden Office. Little details such as lighting will play a big part in your decision. You want to allow for plenty of natural light, which doubles as a source of heating, but you don’t want to be positioned where you will have sun in your eyes each afternoon.
Your garden will be exposed to a whole variety of elements; rain, sun, snow, wind amongst others. You need to ensure your garden office can withstand all of these without succumbing to rot, mould or other elemental decay. Make sure your Garden Office is pressure treated, not dip treated, so your timber can stand up against whatever nature throws at it.
Our pressure treatment process not only gives your Garden Office a rich brown finish (we add a colourant during the process) but also means we can offer you a 10 year guarantee on your timber. You could visit other competitors, many who offer untreated timber to keep their costs low, but then you would annually need to deconstruct your office to treat it.
This will not only add annual cost but you need to take the time off of work to do it, wasting your annual leave. The only thing we ask you to do is annually add a water repellent to your Garden Office – no deconstruction needed.
3. Think about the seasons
It is important for you to plan all year round – the winters in the United Kingdom can get very cold. You don’t want to step into your Garden Office and freeze when you’re trying to focus on your work. Now you could add a heater to your Garden Office or you could opt for a fully insulated Garden Office, featuring an izopanel roof for some of the best insulation on the market.
Searching for insulation can be a bit daunting due to the various options available. Some of our competitors use rock wall or bubble wrap with a foil back, which are adequate but we use polyisocyanurate. This insulator is one of the best insulators on the market, keeping your Garden Office cool in the summer and warm in the winter. A must have for an office where you will be working all year round.
Another addition to your Garden Office which will help with insulation is double glazing. Our Garden Offices offer 28mm double glazed windows, the same as you would find in your home. These units comply with EN1279 standards – this means they have been tested to EN standards for both sound and heating insulation. We’ve been manufacturing windows and doors for over 25 years so we consider ourselves experts!
4. Ease of building
Naturally your Garden Office will require some construction but you don’t want it to be complicated or take up to much of your time. You could get a third party to construct it but that would come at an additional cost. We suggest opting in for a Garden Office that is easy to construct, saving yourself a big headache and also added trouble. The walls to our Garden Office range come in pre made panels so they can be built similar to a jigsaw puzzle.
We offer premium quality garden buildings what are quick and easy to install, and always come fully pressure treated, as standard unlike some competitors.
Don’t take our word for it. On our Youtube channel, we have various videos featuring testimonials from happy customers who are currently working from their Garden Offices, including Chrissie who uses her Office as a jewellery studio.
If you have any further questions then visit our website or give our friendly sales team a call. Alternatively, fill in one of our call back request forms for us to get hold of you at a time that suits you.
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