Operation She Shed | #1 My Flatpack Garden Office

Operation She Shed

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you’ll know I work from home. You’ll also know that I’ve been dreaming of a garden office for the last three and a half years.

I used to have a dedicated workspace. A room that housed everything I needed, including a GIGANTIC printer, my desk and computer, guillotines, and folding machines. Plus reams and reams of card stock and envelopes, plus various other paraphernalia that I use in my day-to-day working life.

But when I was pregnant, we decided to turn the room into a nursery for the twins. So we dismantled my office, piece by piece.

A lot of the non-essentials were boxed up to take residence in my husband’s office (25 miles away). Then I began to work from a corner of our dining room. Once a lovely, tidy, homely space, it became the home for my big ugly printer.

My desk sat in the corner of the room. And the dining table, more often than not, was covered in paper and work detritus.

From that point, I thought endlessly about having a garden office or a she shed. I wrote about it, talked about it, and pinned inspiration on my dream garden office Pinterest board.

Garden Office Lowdown

Now, if you’ve ever looked into garden offices, you’ll know that they come with a hefty price tag. For a decent sized building (and I wanted one at least 10ft by 12ft) they can start at a minimum of £3.5K. 

And spiral upwards dramatically in cost from there.

Good ones need insulating, lighting, and heating.

We just didn’t have that kind of money to burn either so — after a lot of thought — we decided to go down the DIY route.

Can You Build Your Own Garden Office?

That’s the question we were asking ourselves! Can you build your own garden office?

We put in a load of research and after much discussion, we decided to bite the bullet and bought a large shed, with the intention of turning it into a garden office.

My ‘garden office’ arrived in kit form in the first week of January.

A gazillion miles away from the lovely painted building I had in my mind. This was a vision of flat-pack and was going to be a bigger job than your average IKEA wardrobe.

We’d gone for a 10ft by 16ft, so —when it was actually built — it would be a similar sized room to the one I had before.

But that was exactly it.

‘When it was actually built.’

My husband and I had limited resources, limited time and limited skills. But, we made a decision — probably a ridiculous one — to do this ourselves.

Now, I just have to point out that my lovely boy is not a builder — or a carpenter. He wears a suit, Monday to Friday, and works in an office. But we have taken on 3 house renovations (almost single-handedly). And he is amazingly talented at anything — and everything — he turns his hand to.

And I can paint.

So this is how my garden office started life. A pile of wood in the back garden.

Follow our journey to see if we manage to turn this flatpack shed into a garden office: my she shed of dreams.

This article was originally published on June 14 2016.

Caro Davies

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Caro Davies is a former art-director turned writer and content-creator, and editor behind UK lifestyle blog The Listed Home. She writes about home-related topics, from interiors and DIY to food and craft. The Listed Home has been featured in various publications, including Ideal Home, Grazia, and Homes & Antiques magazines.

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