New Garden office or repurpose existing workshop

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14 Apr 2016
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Hi there,

Trust everyone is well. I am trying to understand what would benefit me/us long term, so perhaps if I put my ideas down, maybe someone can help me with the choice I will need to make.

I work from home (and could chose to stay home - whether I want to in the long term is another thing entirely).

I currently use the third bedroom as an office, but we have a number 2 on the way, due 1st September.

I won't be able to work inside the home when the baby is born so looking at what options I have.

When we moved into our house 3 years ago, we inherited a 18ft x 10ft workshop (think it's 12mm ship lap t&g) and it's at the end of a 90ft+ garden. It is currently 30-40% full with an assortment of furniture/garden/bbq items etc. It needs a clean and an external treat, but inside it's dry. It's on wooden bearers sitting on top of a concrete base.

Initially, I wanted to partition it so that half was for storage, and half for an office, which would mean it needed insulation, lighting, heating, securing (would have computer/laptop etc etc).

So started to look around to see what I could do (checking forums and you tube for people have done similar)

I then spoke to my neighbour (a builder), who said, why don't you get a separate, already insulated shed/office to have next to the shed. Then you can partition the shed, and make the other half into a games room so that when the kids are older, they have another area to play in.

So then started to look at companies who provided a similar service, would look to get at most a 10 x 8 with a door and window (already double glazed, and insulated).

I then started to have yet another think, I may not always be working from home (or may not want to in the future). So, why not buy a small shed, similar size to the original office shed, and store everything in there. Then insulate the entire workshop to turn into an office then eventual games room - Depending how you look at it, it could be more expensive to retrofit to something that large, or could be cheaper because not spending a small fortune on something that is for the purpose I want, but may end up being something expensive in the future if I won't use it ...

So question is :-

1) Do I convert existing shed, which would serve me short term, but long term might not be making optimum use of the space that I have, plus If I have to move the door opening (2nd door for the shed) - could be more expensive (particularly if I require help) - Also I would need to remove everything out of the shed first to clean then gain idea of partition placement.

2) Purchase a purpose built shed for what I need - Then I can worry about the converting the shed to shed/games room in the years to come ... but would end up with an expensive "room" if I won't be using it all the time should I not be working from home anymore. With some of these sheds, there is a potential to take down if we moved (may not be practical depending on the design)

3) Buy a cheap shed to store everything inside, then convert the entire workshop into a fully usable large room. Granted the cost of heating (depending on the insulation I use) would be affected, but for the long term may work out better, and would need to replace existing window with double glazing.

Whichever choice I pick, I will need armoured cabling from the house and a consumer unit put in.

Am I overthinking this or am I looking for a solutions to problems that don't exist
smile.gif
.

Cheers,
Chris P
 
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