How to get the most out of a small garden room

Garden Rooms are the latest trend in home improvements. They offer a fast and reasonably priced way to add valuable space to work, work out or relax in your garden. While many of us would love one of these stunning living spaces in our garden, space is often limited. While this doesn’t mean that you can’t have a Garden Room (they can be fitted into the corner of most gardens), you may need to choose a smaller one that you would have liked. If this is the case don’t worry! You can still create a really valuable living space from a Small Garden Room – and here’s how.

Here are the top 5 tips on how to get the most out of a small Garden Room.

1. The key to getting the most out of a small garden room is good planning. When you’re choosing the design of your garden room, think very carefully about what you want to use it for. Will it be a home office, a home gym, a space to relax, a bar? It may be that it needs to be multi-functional - an office during the week and a cosy hub to read the papers at the weekend. Whatever your plans are for your small Garden Room, make sure you do plenty of research. You need to ensure that every inch of the interior space is maximised to get the best possible use out of the room. Thinking carefully about the different ways you will use your small Garden Room will ensure you create a space that works for you.

2. Once you’ve thought carefully about how you will use your small Garden Room and decided on the shape and size that is best for you, it’s time to think about furnishings. With a small Garden Room, you may need to get creative with your choice of furnishings. A good idea is to look at beach huts and how owners furnish them, as they are another small space that needs to work hard for multiple uses. Think folding tables that can be flipped down to work on or serve food on. Chairs that fold are another great option and they can be hung on peg style storage boards on the walls. You might also want to consider furniture on castors that can easily be moved around your small Garden Room which will allow you to change its usage quickly and easily. If you want to add sofas, you will need to steer away from ones with thick chunky frames. Choose more sleek, compact designs and add comfort with cushions and throws. By choosing your furniture carefully and considering things such as fold-up furniture and wall-mounted storage, it is still possible to create a really practical, usable space from a small Garden Room.

Are you a trade customer looking to supply Ultraframe Garden Rooms? Please visit our trade website.

3. Colour is another key consideration. Be very careful if you are painting the walls of your small Garden Room as colour can really have an impact on how large or small a room feels. As a general rule, painting walls dark will make a space feel smaller, while lighter shades give a feeling of space. If you don’t want to have white walls in your small Garden Room but want to keep the space feeling light and airy, go for light muted shades of grey, green or even shades of white, to add a touch of warmth, without compromising on the feeling of space.

4. Light. Most Garden Rooms feature a set of French or bi-fold doors and possibly some windows, and most people that this will be enough for them to be light and bright inside. However, the key to the amount of natural light in a room is the light that comes in via the roof, so choosing a Garden Room with rooflights – such as those from Ultraframe – will mean there is far more natural light in your small Garden Room. Why is this important you might ask? Well, a room that is flooded with heaps of natural light will always feel far larger and lighter and airier than one which is dark and gloomy. If you are planning a small Garden Room then ensuring there will be lots of natural light is key to making it feel larger.

5. Accessories. Choosing the right – or the wrong – accessories can be make or break as to whether your small Garden Room feels spacious, or cluttered and small. In a small Garden Room, mirrors are your best friend. Carefully positioned mirrors of a reasonably large size will give the effect of a much larger space – and they will also reflect the views of your garden and that all-important natural light. Think carefully about the size of other accessories – anything too large such as large vases may overpower the space, making it feel smaller. For impact, cluster the accessories you do add in groups. This will give more impact and also ensure that there is less clutter spread around your small Garden Room.

As you can see there are many ways that a small Garden Room can still become a really practical and beautiful living space. Plan carefully about what you will use the space for and the items you will furnish and decorate it with. Pinterest and Instagram are great places to look for inspiration. Try searching for how other people have furnished their Garden Rooms, as well as looking at other small living spaces such as beach huts, holiday homes and lodges.

The planning stage and making a small space work well and look beautiful is actually great fun. Along the way, you will more than likely find some great tips and hacks that you can also use in your own home and may even hone your DIY skills as you learn to make things and improvise to make your small space work for you. A small Garden Room can still offer endless opportunities for working, socialising and relaxing.

Enjoy the planning 😊