Are you considering buying a garden room? Are you trying to decide whether a garden room or some other form of garden building is right for you? Then continue reading and the Rubicon team will tell you all of the benefits of owning a garden room.
Garden room definition
Before we dive into the myriad benefits associated with owning a garden room, we’d like to take the opportunity to define exactly what we mean by the term ‘garden room’.
You see, the design and manufacture of garden rooms isn’t highly regulated, meaning that all sorts of different types of garden buildings are often given the name ‘garden room’.
The reality is that many so-called garden rooms are little more than what we call ‘posh sheds’, that are not built to last.
Here at Rubicon, it’s our belief that garden rooms should be extensions of your home. That is, they should be designed and built to the same standards as your home, with solid foundations, high-quality materials and the reassurance that they’ll last for decades.
Those are exactly the kinds of garden rooms that we build here at Rubicon. Our garden rooms are:
> Designed to last, with 20-year guarantees (T&Cs apply).
> Maintenance free. With our optional composite cladding, you won’t have to paint or clean the outside of your garden room.
> Eco-friendly, using sustainably-sourced materials as much as possible.
> A turnkey solution. Unlike many garden room manufacturers we take care of everything from start to finish, including providing an industry-leading foundation solution.
So, when it comes to thinking about the benefits of owning a garden room, you should first make sure that what you’re thinking about buying is actually a proper garden room!
The benefits of garden rooms
Garden rooms without a doubt make a life-changing, positive addition to any home. With garden-living on the rise, and working from home becoming the norm for many people, a garden room could open up a world of benefits to you…
They add value to your home
The first and arguably most significant benefit of owning a garden room, is that it will add to the value of your home.
As we mentioned earlier, garden living and working from home is becoming an increasingly popular way of living, and people are looking for homes that can facilitate this.
As such, a garden room will make your home more appealing to people looking to live that lifestyle.
But, how much can you expect a garden room to add to your property’s value?
Whilst it’s difficult to provide an exact answer, the likes of property gurus Phil Spencer and Sarah Beeney generally expect a garden room to add 5-7% to the value of a property.
In other words, a garden room can effectively pay for itself by increasing the value of your entire
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Additional living space
With today’s new build homes becoming smaller and smaller, a garden room offers the perfect way of creating additional living space, without having to go to the time and expense of obtaining planning permission (in most cases) and undertaking an extension project.
Even in older homes, space can be limited, especially if you have a large family or lots of possessions.
Garden rooms are multi-functional too. They’re not simply an ‘extra’ living room. As you’ll find if you explore our case studies, garden rooms can be used for everything from a home office or gym to a photography studio or a music studio (and many other things in between!).
At Rubicon, we design our garden rooms so that they’re incredibly well insulated and ventilated, meaning they are not only comfortable all-year-round, but are very affordable to heat.
As such, they genuinely are like an extension of your own home.
Cost effective
Not only do garden rooms improve the value of your home and provide additional living space, but they do so in an incredibly cost effective way.
The alternative - embarking on a home extension project - is far more time consuming, costly and stressful.
For example, according to homebuilding.co.uk ‘most extension projects cost around £1,350-£2,250/m² of new internal space. So a 30m² kitchen extension could cost anywhere between £40,500 to £67,500’ (and that doesn’t necessarily include VAT at 20%).
Compare this to a Rubicon garden room, which can be bought from as little as £18,200 (which includes installation and foundations) and you can quickly see how cost effective garden rooms can be as a means of enhancing your home.
Quick installation
Linked to the point above about being cost effective, garden rooms are quick to install.
This is a huge benefit, particularly when you consider how long traditional home extensions can take.
Whilst the exact time it can take to install a garden room will vary depending on which model you choose, with an average of 10-14 days to build, it will undoubtedly be quicker than the alternatives such as a home extension which can take many months together with huge disruption to your daily lives.
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A space that’s truly unique
Here at Rubicon, most of our garden rooms are made to measure, with additional features such as toilets, internal walls, Ethernet and WiFi connections, different heating and aircon options, and a wide variety of different finishes and materials.
In other words, with Rubicon it’s possible to create a truly unique and bespoke garden room that’s tailored to your exact requirements. This is in contrast to the majority of other garden room manufacturers that sell off the shelf fixed sizes and models with a limited range of customisations etc.
What’s more, because Rubicon is able to completely custom build garden rooms, it means we can create a garden room for you no matter what type of property you live in. We’ve even installed garden rooms on the sides of exposed hills and small hard to get to terraces.
Privacy
Adding a garden room to your property provides you with somewhere to escape to; an enclave of privacy if you will.
Whether you need somewhere to work uninterrupted or you want somewhere to indulge in your hobbies - then a garden room offers the perfect place to do so.
A garden room is also a great place to engage in activities that might annoy the rest of your household, such as listening to music, watching loud movies or hammering away at a model-building project.
Although our garden rooms aren’t classed as ‘soundproof’, they are well insulated and have good acoustic performance which does help to muffle and absorb both internal and external noise.
Multi-functional
As we mentioned earlier, garden rooms are truly multi-functional spaces, and with the addition of internal walls, can be divided up to create dedicated spaces for different tasks or activities.
For example, if you and your partner both work from home, then the addition of an internal wall to your garden room can create two separate offices for you both to work from (whilst being under the same roof).
Likewise, if you want to add a separate storage area to your garden room, then that’s entirely possible too. Our Combi style garden rooms are a great example of this ‘hybrid’ storage and living space garden room.
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They’re trendy!
Garden rooms also have the benefit of being ‘on-trend’ and are a fantastic way of creating somewhere where you, your family and friends can socialise.
Adding a garden room to your home is also a good opportunity to landscape your garden at the same time, with garden rooms acting as great focal points for wider garden projects.
A space for children and teenagers
If you’re sick and tired of your kids or teenagers getting under your feet, then a garden room has the benefit of providing them with a space where they can hang out and be as noisy as they like, without disturbing the rest of the household.
It’s perfectly straightforward to add things like televisions, computers and sound systems to garden rooms, so there’s no end to the entertainment options you can add to your garden room.
All-year-round use
As we mentioned earlier, our garden rooms are exceptionally well insulated, meaning they can be used all year round.
That’s in contrast to many cheaper garden rooms and ‘posh sheds’ which have little to no insulation and which can get particularly chilly and cold during autumn and
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Save money on energy bills
Because our garden rooms are so well made and insulated, they can help you save money on your energy bills - something which is especially important given the rising cost of energy at present.
Thanks to their very efficient insulation, our garden rooms are proven to be very cheap to heat. So, if you find yourself working from home during the winter, it can be much more sensible to work from your garden room rather than a spare room in your home (which will be much more costly to heat).
No commuting
Related to the above point, owning a garden room can help you eliminate (or greatly reduce) the amount of commuting you have to do.
With fuel costs rising almost as sharply as energy bills, this can have a real positive impact on your wallet!
More time with your family
A garden room, especially one that you use for working from home, can help you spend more time with your family.
You can simply shut the door at the end of the day and you’ll be home with your family in a matter of
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Build your dream garden room with Rubicon
Have you decided to invest in a garden room? Then consider buying one from Rubicon.
As the UK’s leading designer and manufacturer of garden rooms we can work with you from start to finish to create the garden room of your dreams.
We’ve got hundreds of happy customers and have a showroom where you can see our garden rooms in the flesh.
Speak to Rubicon about your garden room requirements today
For more garden room information, inspiration and advice, read the Rubicon blog…