The first incarnation of the garden room.
If you’ve followed my Instagram account for a while then you’ll know that I’m a massive fan of bring the oudoors indoors and vice versa. I strongly believe in treating any space as a room, including spaces such as sheds, verandas, balconies and summer houses. (I also think you should treat transitional spaces like hallways and corridors in the same way but that’s a topic for another blog post).
Three years ago I was invited by Cuprinol to colaborate on an outside space project. I leapt at the chance and we built a garden room against the garage using only B & Q products, Cuprinol paint and a £500 budget. The blog post all about how we did it is here.
We’ve improved and added to the space over the years and I’ve been asked lots of questions on Instagram about it so I thought I’d do an update on what we did next!
Floor
Our £500 budget didn’t stretch to a permanent floor for the campaign but this was fine as it gave me time to think about what I really wanted. I wanted something that hardwearing (obviously) and light coloured to keep it feeling light down there. I also wanted it to be something that would work with different looks and not dominate the space in any way. After toying with the idea of tiles for a while (too expensive) I settled on the cheapest and easiest option - a concrete slab. This was just a case of hiring a cement mixer and pouring the cement mix in the floor space which was shuttered off by scaffold planks. I didn’t document this but here’s a good YouTube video on how to do it. Once dried, we painted the floor with white garage floor paint. This is hardwearing and created the light and airy feel I was after. And because I like to treat outdoor rooms as real rooms, I often use rugs to zone or soften the space.
2. Roof
We’d chosen corrugated bitumin for the roof as it was low cost and hard wearing. Another benefit was that it was quiet when rained on - a lovely muffled noise. However, over the years it became obvious that the roof made the space too dark and also prevented the grass from growing in front of the space as it was permanently shaded by the roof. Then during the winter one corner of the roof collapsed - not as long lasting as we’d thought - so it was time to replace it. My ideal solution would have been some beautiful reclaimed summerhouse glass like this:
Beautiful conservatory. Image: Pinterest.
However, this is hard to source and very expensive so I settled on corrugated perspex which was £70 in total from Wickes. It was easy to fix to the existing frame and the room was immediately filled with natural light. This will make it much more amenable to growing plants and vines, however, the look is quite stark which leads me onto the solution I already had lined up for this.
Corrugated plastic roof. Lets lot of light on but can be a bit sterile looking.
3. Reed Screening
I’m always massively inspired by Petersham Nurseries and the glass roof of their Richmond nursery is lined with bamboo blinds. This is for practical reasons, as well as aesthetic, as it shades the planted from intense sunlight. But how great does it look and how easy is it to achieve?!
Instead of bamboo blinds I ordered 2m x 4m reed screening from UK Garden Products and also reused some existing reed screening we already had covering a fence. We’ve only partially covered the roof, where shade is needed, and we may add more. As with most things, we’ll live with it for a bit and see how it works out.
Reed screening is a cheap and effective way of discguising corrugated plastic.
4. Kitchen
I’ve tried to zone the outdoor into three distinct areas - dining area, as seating area and a kitchen! We already had an old belfast sink that had been in the garden for years (it was my grandmothers) so Rob mounted it onto a frame to create a sink unit. We then plumbed in a cold water supply and added tiles left over from a previous collaboration with Bert aand May. We added a shelf made of scaffold planks and reclaimed cistern rackets and Rob also made a kitchen unit from an old bunk bed, again topped with old scaffold planks as the ‘worktop’. I use this area for plant care and propagation usually but when we have friends round it becomes a real kitchen and food preparation area for the barbeque.
Reclamed belfast sink, reclaimed tiles and reclamed scaffold planks to create an outdoor kitchen. (Peonies optional unless you’re on Instagram in which case they are the law!)
5. Gutters
You might think that guttering wouldn’t be needed in on such a small space. We didn’t and only included a french drain when we first built the outdoor room ( a shallow channel dug around the perimeter of the building and filled with gravel for fast drainage.) However, the french drain wasn’t up to the job in heavy rain and caused lot of water to splash back into the room and soak the rugs. So we added a white gutter and drainpipe that blended in with the woodwork.
White guttering was the only acceptable option and it is now pleasingliy disguised with Virginia Creeper.
So that’s been the main changes we’ve made to the garden room. It has been used SO much over the last three years - as a dining space, an office space, a teen hang out area to name but a few. I’m glad we kept it neutral because it’s allowed us to create a different look and configuration whenever we’ve felt like it. It’s also been used as a location shoot for brands and even appeared in a book Selina Lake Shed Style.
The best decision we made though was to include a sold roof in the design. The weather in the UK is so unreliable that it’s a must really if you want to use the space for as much of the year as possible. The solid roof also means that you are not limited to using only traditional outdoor furniture in your outdoor room. The roof protects the furniture to a large degree and this opens up many more furnishing possibilities. We have a vintage leather sofa and an ex-army mess table as our furniture in the garden room and both stay out all year. The sofa is fairly battered now but has given us three years service and probably lasted as long as an expensive outdoor sofa that isn’t under cover. For me the priority was a space that made me feel happy and completely relaxed and, as with any interior, I only get that feeling by surrouding myself with well loved pieces.
I hope that this blog has helped if you’re thinking of building an outdoor space. I really recommend them - they don’t have to be expensive and the benefits thye bring to your life are worth every penny anyway.
