What kind of garden outbuilding?

penguine

We're planning to have a garden building built in about 6 months time, primarily for use as a home gym but ideally it will also incorporate storage for garden tools and bicycles.

My husband is keen on some kind of wooden Swedish building an acquaintance has and thinks this would be the cheapest option. But I've looked at various suppliers online and am having trouble figuring out what the actual cost would be since you often have to price the foundation, installation, electrics, flooring and roofing separately.

I'm also not convinced that wooden outbuildings are that durable. What's the lifespan of this kind of building? One company I looked at offered a 10-year guarantee so I'm thinking after 20 years it's probably not going to be in great shape. And if it's built at the very bottom of the garden how would we paint the back to keep it waterproof? The neighbours behind us have a very thick hedge along the boundary.

For a long term solution that we can design exactly to our requirements, and make use of the whole width of the bottom of the garden, would it be better to find a local builder and get it done in brick?

beaker141

Hi - I considered a brick built and had building regulations consent for it, but a family change meant I couldn't do the brick built option.


I looked at Wooden studios and did quite a bit of research and in the end I went for this company http://www.boothsgardenstudios.co.uk/quotations and had a 24ft * 12ft studio, split into 2 sections, 1 as a studio/playroom that would suit as your gym and 1 as a shed, with no windows and panel walls. Shed was 9ft *12 ft, main studio being 15ft * 12ft.


In terms of costing, they don't require any base, plans, regs etc, so the price on the site it what you pay. I'd post a picture but in all my years on here I've never looked at how to do it !




Stuart.

penguine

Thanks for that, after doing some research over the weekend I'm leaning a bit towards the wooden option as I think they look nicer. I suppose we can just make sure there's a gap behind so that we have enough space to get back there to paint it periodically!