Personal considerations before investing in a bespoke garden office

Personal considerations before investing in a bespoke garden office

In a separate post we look at Business considerations before investing in a garden office. Deliberately sensible and intended to suggest some pragmatic filters to test your resolve for choosing a bespoke build and provoke topics that will influence the final scope. In this post we propose five Personal filters to add clarity to the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of the investment you are planning. This is a significant decision and organising both emotional and pragmatic considerations to develop or delete will help us build a project plan together and deliver a tangible vision for your future working environment.

We’ve chosen five to get the discussion going but there will be many more that are personal to you. Here goes...

1. Dreams

Yes, we must be pragmatic to get the most from the available space, products, and budget but, this is your dream! This is why you’ve worked so hard. This is why you continue to plan your strategy for the debate that will follow the quotation. So, let’s allow a little emotion, a splash of colour and a taste of personality to influence the choices you make and avoid specifying an expensive regulation shed. You want to build an empire in your image and you can’t do that from the spare bedroom masked by a Zoom* pre-set background. You need a control centre; a flight deck; a war room.

2. Purpose

Mybridity focuses on bespoke garden offices to differentiate between a space to create momentum behind a business or project on terms that are meaningful to you, and four walls with a roof for you to do as you please. That’s not to suggest a higher calling! It’s because we choose to work with like-minded people and share ideas and aspirations that materialise in workspace form. It’s not the only approach but being clear about why this project is happening will make inspiring outcomes more likely.

3. Space and setting

We should allow a little time to let our imaginations run wild with possibilities but let’s consider the space available to work with. The vision may include leather sofas, a fully stocked bar, and a waiting area but it’s useful to prioritise our wish list so we don’t design something of everything and finish with everything of nothing. Inside and outside there will be choices to make. This should extend to the way in which the surrounding area could be landscaped to turn a creative space into an inspiring scene.

4. Behavioural preferences.

We shouldn’t forget that people are different. For everyone who climbed the walls during lockdown someone else was living their best life with no obligation to wrestle other commuters or indulge the water cooler mutterings of colleagues. The design of your home office is an opportunity to create a workspace personal to you. Loud or quiet, busy or minimalist, comfortable or utilitarian. What matters is that the space we are building serves you and the way you choose to engage with the world.

5. Return on investment

OK, so money is inherently a pragmatic topic but knowing that a bespoke garden office is a genuine investment with an excellent return should draw an emotive response. Opinions vary but we can see that estate agents now include garden offices in the square footage of property details. Any such claims are subject to a number of factors but a recent report from The Property Centre claims a garden office could add around 5-10% to the value of your home. I would suggest there is no robust uniform calculation but the principle is clear.

‍Margin notes.

We could load a gallery with photographs of other people’s projects and have you point at one as if you are choosing sweets from a line of over sized jars. Instead, we want to provoke and help you build proof points to support the decisions you are making even if the conclusion is that a bespoke garden office is not the right choice for you. For a free, initial discussion about your individual workspace, contact Wayne at wayne@mybridity.com.

* Other video conferencing platforms are available.