Garden rooms builtto the same standardas the house

Garden offices are the most requested: one insulated room with generous glazing, power, data, lighting and heating. Garden gyms need a stronger floor build-up, more ventilation and careful power planning. Garden rooms used as a snug or playroom often add a WC, which brings drainage into the design. Garages, workshops and stores prioritise access, security and durability over finish level.

Annexe-style buildings with sleeping or cooking facilities are a different proposition: they usually fall outside permitted development for outbuildings and need planning permission and full building regulations compliance. We tell you which category your brief falls into before design starts.

Foundations are chosen for the ground and the load: concrete strip or pad foundations, a reinforced slab, or screw piles where access is restricted or tree roots must be avoided. The structure is normally treated timber frame, insulated between and over the studs, with a breather membrane outside and vapour control inside so moisture moves the right way.

Cladding options include cedar, thermally modified timber, composite board or render, with EPDM or single-ply membrane on flat roofs laid to positive falls, or tiles on a pitched roof. Glazing is double or triple glazed aluminium or timber, sized against orientation to avoid overheating. Inside, walls are plastered or lined, floors insulated and finished, and heating is typically an electric panel or air-conditioning unit rather than an extension of the house system.

Power is run from the house consumer unit in armoured cable at the correct depth with its own protection, terminated in a small distribution board in the building: installed and certified by an accredited electrician. Data can be run alongside it. Where a WC or sink is included, waste is connected to the existing drainage with the fall and access designed properly.

Many outbuildings fall within permitted development, subject to height (lower near boundaries), footprint relative to garden area, position in front of the house, and use as incidental to the dwelling. Conservation areas, listed buildings and flats change the position. We check your garden against the current limits before design, and where a full application is needed we prepare it.

Price is driven by footprint, foundation type, insulation and glazing specification, cladding choice, and whether the building includes a WC, shower or kitchenette. Access matters more than people expect: a garden reached only through the house adds labour to every delivery and every load of spoil, and it sometimes changes the foundation choice to something that needs less excavation.

Getting the brief right is worth an hour at the start. How many people will use it at once, whether you need to take calls without household noise, how much storage you want built in, whether a bike or gym equipment needs to come through the door, and where the sun falls at the time of day you will use it, those answers change the design more than the square metre figure does.

Groundworks, structure, envelope and fit-out each carry their own stage, and we issue a programme for your project with the estimate. Because the building is designed and built by the same team that delivers our extensions, the specification is written to last: insulated floor, walls and roof, controlled ventilation, glazing sized for orientation and a heating source suited to the room.