Not too long ago there was a time when a garden room was over the wish list of everyone. The country was in the middle of Covid Lockdowns and many people thought they would work from home indefinitely. An office in the back yard seemed to be the perfect solution.
For some, however, these garden deductions are a source of regret.
Olivia Smith* is one of them. Shortly after the end of the last Lockdown in July 2021, she spent £ 18,000 in her garden.
“I work full of home and my husband got a new job, which meant that he would also work more from home, so I thought a garden office was the answer to my prayers,” says Smith, who heads her own communication business.
“It felt like a really big investment, but I thought it would pay off over the years. I spent a long time to design it beautifully – it has fabric on the blanket and a beautiful carpet. However, I soon regret entering it.”
A big problem was that Smith, who lives in Berkshire, that Wi-Fi could not get to work properly in her garden office. In addition, the basic structure that an electrical heating has was too hot in summer and too cold in winter when it had to trudge in the mud over the garden.
“In winter the room is very cold and you have to put on the heating before you go in there. It also sounds silly, but my dogs never settled in the garden room – they kept going to the kitchen and bother me,” says Smith. “In the end I hated to bring my laptop in the rain over the garden because it was getting wet. I found it easier to put myself in the kitchen to work closer to the coffee machine.”
Call the garbage remover
Ups and down in the LandgartenBüos are now collecting dust or are glorified dumping area that are only used for storage. Gareth Lloyd Jones from Hippo, a garbage collection company, says that since the pandemic she has removed “countless” waste piles from unused garden rooms.
“This includes the degraded building itself, undesirable interior ministries or only the general disorder that has accumulated in the room, since it no longer fulfills its main purpose,” he explains. “We have seen a significant increase in these permits in recent years, and it is a real shame because many of the objects and materials that are disposed of are still in great condition.”
Garden rooms have also caused a discord between neighbors – users of the online forum Mumnnet have complained about the noises such as a television that has made up of garden structures that were built near their border.
“Last week I ate a lunch for the soundtrack of a football game and comment,” complains a contribution. Another is: “There seems to be a trend for people who turn their gardens into another” room “in their house, outdoors, in the television room, etc.. But there was a reason why these things were in houses. They contain noise and keep private sphere for everyone!”
A poorly designed garden room can even make it more difficult to sell a house. “Exterior structures without heating, insulation or clear use are now cobwebs and delivery boxes – now they are more of an expensive bicycle shed than a home office,” says Georgie Bolton, a buying consultant at Property Vision.
“In some cases, we have even seen negative effects on buyers who take into account the costs for removal or renovation. Buyers are increasingly skeptical of the covid trend of the garden room, so it is the key.
Many garden offices have become superfluous because the employees will be back at work on a few days a week, especially if they work for larger companies.
For this reason, the demand for buyers and tenants has dropped after a home office. “Today's real estate seekers definitely focus more on prioritizing a city location to minimize the length of their way to work,” says Marco Preciero from the moving company R3Location.
As Smith has noted, many of these hastily built garden offices are not really set up for the British weather and are more expensive than the expected homeowners.
Charlie Warner from the Heaton & Partners' purchase agency says: “Homeowners often use it easy to install, but expensive to operate systems such as Electric Heating in order to keep the rooms comfortably, and for occasional use it is simply not worth it for many people.”
However, garden rooms can and work successfully. Nina Harrison from the Harington UK buying agency says: “From the Victorian follies to sun contracts summer houses, the idea of fleeing a room, just a few steps from the main house from the main house, always have a certain magic.
Alex Smith from the 3D Architectural Renderering Service Render3dquick.com says that good design is the key. “I always suggest to the customer how to use the room over various seasons and scenarios and think about memory, heating and access,” he says.
And size and location is important – it is important that the space is in relation to the plot and not too much of the garden. Geoff Wilford from Wilfords London Estate Agency. “Families, especially those with young children, often prioritize space outdoors where children run around, kick a ball or just be outdoors. If a garden room is too large or poorly positioned, he can eat in this valuable room and exhaust buyers.”
“We don't regret the investment”
Parikshat Chawla from the Chesterton's Estate Agency put an office in the garden of his house in East Sussex during the pandemic. “The idea of working closer to nature on good weather days was appealing, and although it worked for some time, we came up with the internet speed and mobile reporting challenges, which caused it to occasionally withdraw to the main house for video calls,” he says.
Nowadays it uses the storage space – it contains a rowing machine and a bicycle, both of which are still used. “Despite the use of use, we do not regret the investment and would absolutely do it again, with some optimizations such as better connectivity and smarter, more ergonomic furniture,” says Chawla.
“It is something uniquely refreshing to work by green. It is not ideal for the whole year, but as a flexible work area for part of the year, it remains a valuable addition.”
Parikshat CHAWLA's garden office from the pandemic -era is now mainly used for storage, but still serves as a work area for part of the year – Jamie Lorriman
Increasing number of garden offices are now used for playing instead of for work. Harrison saw how they were successfully converted into gyms, while others were transformed into grandma attachments – even though the last time sanitary, cabling and heating requires, which is associated with costs. James Greenwood from Stacks Property Search has become garden offices for yoga rooms and art studios.
At the moment Smith keeps her superfluous garden office – she hopes that it will be taken when her little son beats his teenagers. “I thought about transforming it into a sauna, but when I looked at it, I found that it was more expensive than buying a sauna from scratch,” she says. “I came to the conclusion that it will be a good teenage cave.”
And while most people regret a garden office that they do not use enough, there are those that are based on the garden rooms that are too tempting to leave them. Robin Edwards from Cureton's purchase agency recently visited a family house in the southwest of London, in which an amazing garden room was built during the pandemic so that the City Trader-husband has a peaceful space to work.
“No costs were spared and it was completely isolated with underground heating, shower room, kitchenette and pull-out sofa as well as a hi-tech office,” says Edwards.
“Unfortunately, the husband enjoyed the separate room a bit too much and the couple's marriage met the rocks during the closure. He now lives in it as they complete their divorce and sell his house.”
*The name has been changed
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