New office plans

So after mulling over the last design for a few weeks I had one problem niggling at me from the start. It’s positioning.

I had planned to set the office into a little hole down the side of the garden, and planned to angle it towards the house. The hole was to help me lower the height and minimise digging. The angle was the funk it up a bit.

My big concern was that this massive room was going to encroach on the garden far more than I intended, especially as Stella baulked at the height when I held a tape measure up.

Moving to the bottom corner was the only real option to limit the impact; but an impractical one at that.

##A new design was in order

After a few quick calculations it would seem that turning the office to run parallel with the fence-line and moving the window from the end to run the full length, could actually lower costs - if you believe that!

With the previous design, there was one large window over one end and a tiny one near the back. The angle meant that no side could hide and meant that one small wall and two large walls all needed cladding.

The new design, with an even larger feature window covering the entire length of one wall (by removing the tiny window, the difference being only about +£20) and turning it flat against the fence, means that only two small ends need cladding - the back can use a cheaper material.

So, there it is. Full length windows. Magic.

I have also decided to do a concrete base. It was going to be a wooden base built on pillars but to get the height down I was going to have to excavate quite a lot of soil and still do concrete for the pillars. I figure if I’m going to do all that groundwork anyway, I may as well concrete the lot. This will make it easier to get the height down too.

I’m sure it will cost a bit more, I haven’t done the calculations, but I won’t have to do the deck or the pillars, so hopefully the costs might even out - there or there abouts anyway.