SELF BUILD

Architect Carl Leroy-smith of CARL Architect created a garden room that extended his own former home

‘The house is a typical Victorian terrace,’ says Carl. ‘It’s generally quite a dark house, so this is a different type of room from the rest. There’s a whole wall of glass on one side with sliding doors that I made. It’s attached to the rest of the house through an opening where there were French doors that went out on to the garden.

‘It was built under permitted development [PD]. The house is 3.6 metres wide and I could only go out three metres under PD, and it could only be three metres high so you end up with a cube. Giving up some of the garden was fine. In our road, the gardens are about 30 or 40 metres long, so taking out three metres wasn’t a drama.

‘The timber structure and ply is from B&Q – basically the cheapest stuff I could find. It’s all Danish oiled internally, which brings it together as one colour. I like the timber aesthetic. The flooring is reclaimed Douglas fir that I planed in the garden, then fitted. The outside is western red cedar. The sliding doors I made myself from ply ripped down at B&Q and glass from a local supplier. The most expensive thing was the Vitsoe shelving and desk system used for crafts and work. The hatch was a little house for my son when he was three or four: once he grew up, it became a cupboard.

‘The room created a study and a sitting room – additional family space. It’s fully insulated and complies with building regulations. The verandah gives some privacy. It’s something I include in quite a lot of projects because it’s a useful space: you can have the doors open but it’s a little bit protected when there’s rain.

‘We ended up sitting in the garden room all the time and not in the original living room at the front of the house. It enabled our son to go out in the garden where we could see him play.’

WHERE TO BUY

Garden rooms run the gamut from something home-built from wood to bespoke buildings designed by an architect or specialist firm. In between, you’ll find modular kit buildings at DIY shops, online stores or from garden room specialists. Some companies supply with the option of DIY installation or getting someone in yourself, while others construct, too. Even with a modular design, there will often be customisation options that can make it the right garden room for your needs. Diying? Remember that you’ll likely need a mate to lift panels and so on.

SWITCHED ON

A simple summerhouse used in daylight hours only won’t need it, but many garden rooms require electricity for lighting and to power sockets. Your design may come pre-wired, but it will need to be connected to your electricity supply via an armoured cable buried in the garden. Call in an electrician registered as a competent person to do the work, which must comply with building regulations. Generally, this is an extra cost that needs to be accounted for in your budget, and if the room is distant from the house this will add to the bill.