When you’re looking to create a bespoke Garden Room you can let your imagination go. Contemporary or traditional, you have a blank sheet of paper to choose a design that really suits your needs and style.
And if you want a top tip from me, check out Pinterest. You can’t beat the platform for a bit of design inspiration. But be warned, once you see the possibilities your new project might take on a life of its own.
Hopefully that’s where I come in, as you can use my 35 years experience of creating great designs to consolidate your ideas, discuss what’s possible and find a route that’s best for you and your budget.
Planning
The beauty of Garden Rooms is that in most cases they are allowed through permitted development, so you won’t need planning. However to achieve this you need to set yourself the following design guidelines:
- The building should be single storey and no higher than 2.5 metres from the bottom of the building to the top of the roof.
- The building should not take up more than 50 per cent of your garden area with this or any other building.
- The building should not be used for living or sleeping accommodation.
You also need to think about where you are going to position it. If it is under 15m2 internal floor area it can be installed close to a rear boundary. Over 15m2 and up to 30m2 and it needs to be at least 1m from any boundary. There are some variances to the rules if you’re in a conservation area or area of outstanding natural beauty or a national park. If so lucky you but we’ll need to discuss.
High Quality Design
The lack of planning on most occasions, however, doesn’t mean your new Garden Room is less substantial than a normal building, quite the opposite. Mez Design Garden Rooms are all built to the very highest standard and come fully insulated with electricity installed, so even in the coldest months you’ll be nice and cosy.
In fact you may even find your new Garden Room offers better thermal efficiency than your house. In the summer months you can open up your bi-folds or sliding doors and let the outside in.
Timber frame
Think of your Garden Room as a mini-timber frame home, all the same processes apply when creating it from the ground up, from laying the foundations to putting the roof on, although of course often the roofs are flat and fitted with EPDM with up to a 50 year-year life expectancy.
Perfect finish
And then of course there’s the cladding. Cedar has been very popular of late, however Radiatta Thermowood is also having its day at the moment and offers a fantastic finish with a beautiful grain but without any knots.
So all you need to think about now is the internal finish and of course that depends on how you intend to use it – a home office, a gym, a music studio or hobby room – it’s time to jump on Pinterest again or Instagram of course and plan your own personal escape.
Photo by Arno Smit on Unsplash
