Building a garden office you can actually work in five days a week

Size it around the desk, not the garden

A single desk office works at around 2.5m by 3m, but it feels tight once you add storage and a second screen. Around 3m by 3.5m gives room for a desk, shelving and a chair you can push back from without hitting a wall.

If two people will work in there, or you need a sofa for thinking time, you are into 4m by 3m and upwards. Measure the footprint out on the lawn with string before you sign anything. It always reads smaller outdoors than it does on paper.

Calls, noise and acoustics

Rain on a lightweight flat roof is the number one complaint from people on video calls. A build up with mass in the roof, insulation packed rather than loose, and a membrane laid on board rather than stretched over a void makes a noticeable difference.

Sound going the other way matters too if the office sits near a neighbour's fence. Solid internal linings, a plaster skim rather than a thin board finish, and soft furnishing inside all reduce reverberation so you sound better on calls.

• Mineral wool in the roof build up helps with sound as well as heat
• Plastered internal walls sound calmer than bare boards
• Avoid siting the office directly under a tree that drips onto the roof after rain
• A rug and one soft wall surface will fix most echo problems cheaply

Light, glare and screen position

Full height glazing looks superb and then blinds you at 3pm. Plan the desk position first, then the glazing. A screen facing a large south facing window is unusable for half the year without blinds.

North facing glazing gives steady light with far less glare. Rooflights bring in light without giving you a window behind your monitor, though they need shading in summer.

Heat, cool and fresh air

A well insulated office of this size typically needs very little heating, and a single wall mounted air conditioning unit with a heat pump function handles both winter warmth and summer cooling. That summer half is the one people forget until July.

Trickle vents or a small extract keep CO2 down. A sealed insulated box with one person breathing in it all day gets stuffy quickly, and stuffy is the difference between a productive afternoon and a headache.

Power and broadband done once

Plan sockets around where equipment will actually sit, not evenly around the perimeter. Two doubles at desk height on the desk wall beats six at skirting level.

Run an ethernet cable in the same trench as the power. It is inexpensive at that point and it removes the single most common frustration with garden offices.

• Dedicated armoured supply and small consumer unit, certified under Part P
• Sockets at desk height where the desk will be
• Ethernet back to the router, plus an access point in the office
• Outside light on the door so you are not fumbling with keys in December

Working from home and the rules

Using a garden building as your own office is normally fine under permitted development because it stays incidental to the house. It changes if customers visit regularly, if you take on staff, or if the use starts to look like a business premises rather than home working. Business rates can also come into play in some circumstances.

If your work involves visitors or deliveries at volume, speak to your local planning department first. The answer varies by council and it is far cheaper to ask than to unwind.