Having a separate structure from your home can be very useful and can increase your living space significantly. To do this, many people consider building what is known as a summer house in their garden, and this can serve a few different purposes. Whether you’re creating a nice summer lounge area, a play area for your kids, or even a dedicated entertainment space, a summer house might be a great option for you. Building one, however, isn’t necessarily the easiest of tasks. To help you with this, we’ve listed a number of things for you to consider during this process.
Getting Planning Permissions
First and foremost, you need to know if you are even allowed to build a structure like this. Luckily for you, most buildings like this are in a similar category to sheds and require no planning permission from the planning office to construct. Of course, there are some instances in which you might need permission, though. This is usually if your property is on what is known as dedicated land. This includes listed buildings, conservation land, heritage sites, and areas of outstanding natural beauty. Also, remember that the distance from your main property affects this too. If your summer house is going to be built more than 20 metres away, then it cannot be more than 10 square metres in height.Choosing A Style
Deciding on the type of summer house you want to build is also important as there are many variants to pick from. The best step you can take is to decide on exactly what you will use this structure for and then go from there. Is it going to be a chill-out zone? A play area for your kids? An office space? Once you’ve decided on this, you can then choose the overall style of the building. For example, a traditional garden summer house design is perfect for a lounge area. You could also design a summer house shed to serve as both storage and a rest area. Or perhaps to fit an office area in, you’ll want to create a corner summer house which can be tucked snugly away in the corner of your garden. You will also want to think about the colors of the summer house so that it matches your garden. A natural timber and deck stain is a good choice and it’ll make your wood last longer.
Think About Installing Utilities
The chances are that you’re going to want to install certain things like electrics or even a water source in this structure, depending on its usage. For an office, you might want to have a fully working electrical system. This range of Hager consumer units from Sparks Direct is perfect for this as you may need to upgrade your home’s fuse box to manage the extra load of connections. Don’t forget that this should be done by a trained professional as it’s a very dangerous task replacing something like this. Contact a qualified electrician to do this work for you. Similarly, you might want running water in your summer house and so should look at hiring a plumber to sort this out for you.
Deciding On A Location
Knowing where to place your summer house is a very important decision too as it’s not going to be very easy to move once it’s finished. During hot summers, you will likely want some decent shade in your summer house, allowing it to serve as a place of respite from the heat, so it might be good to place it somewhere with as much shade as possible. You will also want to reduce the footprint of the summer house, preventing it from taking up too much space in your garden.Placing a summer house right in the centre of your lawn, for example, is going to reduce the amount you can do with the rest of your garden. Try to restrict this choice to somewhere along the edge of your garden. You could even use the summer house to separate areas in your garden, connecting a fence to one edge.