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I installed a garden office two years ago. Now I hardly ever work from home and it’s freezing most of the time. Can you recommend an alternative use?
The idea of a garden office is an enticing one: the ability to take a few short steps from home to workplace via flowerbeds and trees — but, more importantly, sans bad lighting and shared fridges. What’s not to love?
But if you no longer work from home, do not let your garden building fall into disrepair. There are plenty of other ways in which you might choose to enjoy it.
Perhaps it’s about flipping this around. Garden buildings to me speak of frivolity and indulgence: inside our houses, most of us are fairly limited when it comes to choosing what to do with our rooms. Garden rooms are a luxury. In this frantic world, they are more often than not built as places in which to switch off. You could transform your ex-workplace into an oasis of relaxation.
How about a garden library? I, for one, am in desperate need. Our book situation at home is out of control, with stuffed shelves and stacks all over the house. A garden shed lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves is my idea of heaven. Then again, so is the idea of a cinema room, with movie projector and comfortable sofas; or a music room — why not make it a combination of all three?
You may want to think more practically, however. Perhaps you’re in need of another guest room much more than a room for watching films. I’ve always loved the idea of having an extra bedroom down at the bottom of my garden. Sending friends out into the night with wellington boots and a torch has a sense of adventure about it.
For inspiration, see the garden cabin designed by architectural salvage superstars Adam Hills and Maria Speake of Retrouvius for presenter George Lamb. Though newly built, the cabin is entirely charming thanks to its materials: repurposed former chapel doors line the front, and can be flung open when the weather is nice enough; inside, tongue-and-groove panels of variegated wood are arranged horizontally across the walls. The overall effect is one of wonder, and this for me is what garden buildings should be about.
Perhaps you might consider creating a room to dine in? Let’s think back to the follies of the 17th and 18th centuries that dot the English landscape, some of which can be rented for holidays via the Landmark Trust, or the Banqueting House at Old Wardour Castle in Wiltshire that I paid a visit to just before Christmas.
In the 17th century, guests of Sir Baptist Hicks could retire to the West Banqueting House in Chipping Campden — now rentable via the Landmark Trust — for their “banquet” or dessert course, “to drink rare wines, eat dried fruit and sweetmeats and admire their host’s domain”, its website informs me. For more contemporary and still thoroughly excellent inspiration, look to the recently opened Villa Mabrouka in Tangier. This former home of Yves Saint Laurent has been transformed into a hotel by Jasper Conran. From photographs I’ve seen, one of my favourite spaces appears to be a dining pavilion in the villa’s garden, with its beautifully painted murals of flower-bedecked trelliswork by Lawrence Mynott.
If you’re a keen gardener, my last suggestion would be to make a room for garden paraphernalia in the same vein as the late Bunny Mellon’s remarkable garden house at her home in Virginia. This is another painted room, with trompe l’oeil decoration by Fernand Renard. Everyday garden and deeply personal items, including watering cans, baskets, letters and books, along with gourds and bundles of asparagus, have been painted on walls and across folding cupboard doors around the entirety of the room. Actual watering cans and baskets of vegetables are strewn on tables and the stone floor, so the boundaries between the real and the unreal are deliciously blurred. It’s a work of genius, and highly magical.
Now, naturally, your room needs to have the basics covered, ensuring a good level of comfort. It certainly shouldn’t be freezing. Consider your best heating options, and make sure the structure is sound. Then begin with the fun stuff. No, you may not want to go for a fully hand-painted interior à la Bunny Mellon. Bookshelves and a good armchair could be just the ticket. The main thing, as mentioned, is that it’s a real luxury to have a room of one’s own — don’t let it go to waste!
If you have a question for Luke about design and stylish living, email him at lukeedward.hall@ft.com. Follow him on Instagram @lukeedwardhall
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