Garden office and shed project stage 1

With a house that has had every bit of extra space squeezed out of it I decide to expand in the garden with a garden office / room that can be used all year round with power and data. Sadly this would have to be built in the vegetable garden but I haven't had the time to dedicate to it recently anyway - family time is more important!

There are some pretty substantial off the shelf options but they come with price tags to match, so my target was to build something of equal quality for half the price. To put a rough figure on it, I recon a bought garden office would cost £10,000 therefore I needed to build for £5,000. I gave myself a generous five year timeline! not just to ease the pressure but also to regulate the financial input.

Starting some time in late 2018 / early 2019 (I can't quite remember it was so long ago) I began to prepare the ground. To create a decent head height and not create a monster over the neighbours garden I decided I would dig down so that the floor of the office was at ground level rather than sitting high above it on its base.

As it happens ground works was a fairly immense job, I excavated around 160 rubble sacks of soil in total all by hand, and easily got rid of it by advertising it for free to anyone who would collect - there is a lot of demand as it turns out!

By March 2020 the Coronavirus outbreak had reached the UK and I was working from home everyday. This was an exceptionally busy time for work but an hour in the evenings smashing the old shed base (new garden shed has to be installed to empty the old one into!) into hardcore was a welcome break away from the laptop. From there I found a renewed emphasis to progress the project, partly because the new situation highlighted why I needed the space but also for an alternative focus now that life in lock-down had taken away the option for any other distracting activities.

I was glad to finish excavations and move quickly through creating hard base (compacted MOT) to the wooden frame on fantastic height and level adjustable plastic stilts, to then create the walls, the roof and eventually panelling the roof and shed section before laying the EPDM (rubber sheet) on the roof, sealing it from the rain from above.

It is now the end of June, I am waiting for the French doors to be delivered, the cladding which will require treating before fixing, the electrics to be installed before then finishing the internal office with insulation, plastering and flooring.

I hope to compile a set of plans and cost schedule from all the paperwork and scribbled ideas as I did not set out with this from the offset. I have very much planned out each section as I have arrived at it, being mindful of how I will tie in the later stages as I went.