How To Turn Your Shed Into A Garden Office Room
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How to Convert a Shed to a Small Garden Room or Office In The UK
Small garden office in a separate room with window walls.
The familiar office environment is usually one or more of the following: busy, cold, confined, and compartmentalised. It’s easy to see why so many office workers get stir-crazy. To combat this, many of those who work at home are transforming their environments.
The solution is to incorporate more life in the form of plants (or animals, if you prefer pets). Bringing the outdoors into the workplace provides amazing benefits. You can do this a number of ways, but the easiest is via a small garden office shed.
The familiar office environment is usually one or more of the following: busy, cold, confined, and compartmentalised. It’s easy to see why so many office workers get stir-crazy. To combat this, many of those who work at home are transforming their environments.
Outdoor office sheds are perfect vessels for life and work to coexist. You get the best of both worlds: nature and a controlled environment. For more information on how to combine these two, keep reading!
Best Types of Sheds To Use As An Office
When deciding on which type of garden shed to use as an office, you have a number of options. Most traditional metal or plastic rooms aren’t going to cut it because they don’t provide a safe, sound, and insulated space. You should be aiming for more premium, wooden rooms.
Log cabins are worth the consideration if you’re leaning more towards spacious and permanent structures. Log cabins require more space, of course, but the trade-off is a very sound and warm workspace for you. Even if you settle for a standard wooden building, make sure you get one with plenty of windows.
Natural light is important if you want plants to thrive and your space to feel alive.
Size and Design
You should plan the layout and size, so you know that everything you want to include is going to fit. First, consider the size of your garden and how much space an outdoor office building is going to take up. Garden rooms come in a range of sizes, so depending on how big your garden is, you can find a garden office as small or large as you like.
You don’t have to own a large shed to convert it into an office. If you only need a small space to work from or have a small garden, a small shed is enough to store a desk and your office essentials. There are many wooden sheds equipped for use as a garden office, and this ranges upwards in sizes 4×6.
You can also choose a corner building which designed to maximise the space in a garden by fitting into a corner of your garden.
Medium Office
A medium-sized shed office is perfect if you need somewhere to keep a fair amount of office equipment, including multiple desks and bookcases. A multi-room garden office will offer you a place to work as well as a room for office storage or a place to keep the printer and files.
You should choose a wooden shed with windows. This will allow plenty of natural light to enter the building and make the office comfortable to spend time in.
Large Insulated Office
If you need a large office or garden room, you can sometimes save on costs by owning a log cabin. When starting up your own business, this is a perfect office solution. It provides you with a spacious garden building to work from home at a fraction of the cost. There are many designs and styles available to suit your garden. Contemporary pent styles are perfect for modern gardens and traditional apex and reverse apex designs which complement a traditional garden.
Renovating a Shed
Before transforming your current shed into an office, you should first see if you have to make any changes. Also, make sure the building is completely weather-proof. Check for any tears in the rooftop and that it is safely connected. Additionally, test the entrance and windows to see that they are snug when closed.
Clear out your shed and search for any indications of mildew, rust, animal droppings or wood decay. Take care of these problems before changing your shed into an office. The improvements ought to be straight-forward, although you shouldn’t take on anything you feel unsure about.
If you feel uncertain about the strength of your shed, you ought to request that an expert investigate it or buy another shed that is already prepped as a garden office.
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Furnishing Your Small Garden Office
It’s time to plan out your lighting, insulating, protection, and power. These are what will change your shed into a genuine office so you can work without distractions.
Lighting
This is important, but you may want to save your lighting choices for after you get your layout squared away. For a comfortable small garden office, you’ll want a combination of ambient light and directional light. Ambient light for when it’s not completely dark out and LED spotlights for working into the wee hours.
We like the bendy office desk lights and the overhead lights that can move either on a track or articulated arm. Some low-powered fairy lights are awesome for keeping your plants illuminated when the natural light gets low.
Insulation and Temperature
How well your outdoor garden office is insulated can prevent distracting noises and damaging humidity. Nothing can be worse for a home office idea than to finish constructing your new garden room only to experience yellowing, damp papers or fried electronics. On the flip side, poor heating can make working outside a gamble with the cold.
Having a powerful, self-regulating ceramic-plate heater will provide you with plenty of heating while keeping moisture levels down. As for keeping your office cool? Well, you can find plenty of portable AC units, as well, if opening the windows in your office doesn’t suffice.
Power
Most workplaces will require–at minimum–a laptop, telephone, and lighting. For this, you’ll require power. If what you do doesn’t require a PC/TV/Sewing Machine, etc. in your office, you could run a line from your house for lights. It’s critical to hire an expert to complete any electrical work for you.
Tell them what number of attachments and light switches you need and all the hardware you’ll be running electric. If something goes haywire, then your expensive electronics will be safe.
Purchasing a Garden Office Shed
There’s a lot of work that goes into building a small garden office, but the rewards are worth it. Having your little slice of workplace zen is underrated. You’ll experience fewer burnouts and more work productivity if you’re happy where you work.
With that said, we know that most people don’t have the time or patience to put together a solid garden room – office on their own. The good news is that there are plenty of great garden offices out there that you can buy, ready to outfit and customise. Tear down the walls and renew your relationship with nature today!
