Garden Office Blog

Homes and Holidays Supplement - Sunday Mirror

Homes and Holidays Supplement - Sunday Mirror

By Dawn Kubicek on 15th April, 2010

Decorated Shed was chosen to feature our most recent build in the 'Homes and Holidays' Sunday Mirror newspaper at the beginning of April ...

'Short on Space? Why not GROW a new room'

When your home is bursting at the seams with people and stuff but you can't afford to move or don't want to up sticks, the only option is to build upwards and outwards.

If you've already extended the loft, added a rear, converted the garage or similar, and you still need more space, what's left?

How about a Decorated Shed garden studio to meet your unique needs?

For as little as £10,000 you can get a modern garden building with double glazed windows for use as an garden office, garden studio, or whatever suits your specific needs. Or a top of the range model for up to £100,000, gives you a proper "mini - house" complete with living room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom, which is ideal for a granny annexe or grown up children still living at home.

One couple who have done just that are Russ and Katy Evans. After the birth of their third child, they ran out of space but did not want to leave their home.

Investment sales manager Russ works from home two or three days a week and, with all the bedrooms used up, he found himself working in the porch. They did not want to extend their three bedroom, semi detached cottage in New Mills, Derbyshire as they would lose too much garden.

They considered converting the freestanding garage, but felt they wouldn't get a large enough office or play room doing that. And they didn't have enough equity in their house to give them the deposit to move to a bigger house.

Katie - mum of three met Decorated Shed owner through a friend. The garden buildings Scott Horner supplied seemed like the answer to their problem. He worked closely with Katie and Russ to create a bespoke garden office that suited their specific needs.

The total cost for the 24 square metre pod was £40,000, which also included knocking down the garage, doing some work on existing foundations, plus installing an underground cable to bring electricity from the house to the office.

The pods usually take five to six days to install but this particular build took about two weeks because they opted for an individual design to include an office, storage space and activity room.

Russ says "The quality of our garden office is unbelievable, and it's so well insulated i only need to put a fan heater on for 30 minutes to heat it up. I've been here when it was minus six outside and it was as cosy as anything inside"

What sets the garden buildings from Decorated Shed apart from a typical shed is that they are made from SIP's - Structural Insulated Panels - which have an internal core of insulating material such as polystyrene bonded to the outside walls. SIP's keep far more heat in that conventional timber - framed walls.

One of the main benefits of installing a posh Decorated Shed is that most of the building work is done off site and then it takes no more than two weeks to install and decorate inside.

Not only is this incredibly quick for a construction project but it also creates a lot less upheaval than getting the builders to do an extension.


Category:  Company Updates

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