Working from Home with a Busy Family

There’s a particular aspect of working from home that only parents know. It’s when you’re in a zoom meeting, video camera on, when a small person materialises behind you holding a shoe and demanding to know where the other one is. Behind them, in full view of colleagues, is yesterday’s washing-up and a laundry pile that slowly gets knocked to the ground as your kid whirls past.

Working from home is life changing, especially for those who need flexibility. But not when “home” and “office” are the same square metre of kitchen table, and you’re clearing away your laptop every evening so the family can eat their fish fingers

Giving up an entire bedroom to a home office can be hard. UK homes are built small, and we need all the space we can get so you may be looking at how you can make working from home really work for you long-term whilst not taking away any precious space your family needs to grow.

Enter the outside office: a proper, dedicated workspace, twenty steps from your back door. I have one and it’s a game changer.

What actually is an outside office?

You might hear an outside office called a few different things – garden office, garden room, studio, pod, “the shed, but nice.” What they all have in common is a standalone insulated building in your garden, wired for power, kitted out for year-round use, and entirely separate from the house.

It is not a summerhouse with a plug-in heater and delusions of grandeur. A real outside office has insulation in the floor, walls and roof, proper windows and doors, ideally with double glazing, and heating so you can work in cosy comfort all year around. In fact I find my outside garden room warmer and cosier than the house in winter! I love reading in there, and it doubles up as a small library for me. It’s really important that your outside office isn’t just a garden shed that’s been glorified with a desk. This is going to be your place of work all year around and it needs to be both functional and comfortable.

Sizes typically run from around 2.5m x 2.5m (just enough space for a desk, chair, shelving) up to 5m x 4m and beyond, which gives you room for a desk, a sofa, and even a home library if you want one like me.

The commute you’ll actually look forward to

A lot of people say that they struggle to work from home because it’s harder not having a separation of work and personal life. I think that’s especially true when you’re a parent with a busy house. There are always going to be toys around, unexpected noises, smells even. For me the problem with working from home isn’t concentration, it’s transition. Your brain never gets the signal that work has started, or crucially, that it has stopped.

The thirty-second walk down the garden does something surprisingly powerful. It’s a threshold. You put shoes (okay, perhaps slippers) on, you cross the grass, you open a door, and your brain knows you’re at work now. And in the evening you do it in reverse, close the door behind you, and genuinely leave.

Parents in particular tend to notice the change fastest. There’s a visual, physical boundary that even a four-year-old can understand: the door is shut, Mum’s at work. It’s far easier to enforce than “please don’t come into the dining room,” and it means when you do come back to the house, you’re properly there, rather than half-listening while mentally still at work.

Do you need planning permission?

Usually not, but you should still check with your local council before investing in any garden improvements. In the UK, most garden offices fall under permitted development, meaning no planning application required, provided you stick to the rules. Broadly, that means a single-storey building with a maximum height of 2.5m if it’s within two metres of a boundary, covering no more than half the land around your original house, and used for purposes incidental to the home.

Do check with your local council’s planning department before you make any decisions. Ten minutes of admin beats a very expensive misunderstanding.

Making it somewhere you actually want to spend time

A workspace you dislike is a workspace you’ll avoid, and then you’re back at the kitchen table wondering where your money went. So you want to design your outside office for comfort as well as function.

Get the light right. Position your desk so natural light comes from the side rather than behind or in front. Behind gives you screen glare, in front turns you into a silhouette on video calls. Add a decent lamp for winter afternoons.

Sort the temperature properly. An electric radiator, underfloor heating or a small air heater will do the job. A radiator is usually the most cost efficient and simplest to install.

Think about the internet before it’s built. Wi-Fi that struggles across will be a problem. Consider whether you can run an ethernet cable from the home modem, or speak to your internet supplier.

Storage, storage, storage. Go vertical with shelving, and put a cupboard somewhere for the boring stuff so everything is kept neat and tidy. A small space can get messy fast.

Then make it yours. This is the genuine joy of an outside office: nobody else lives in it. No compromise on the paint colour. No one moving your things. Hang the art you love, get the ridiculous chair, put a rug on the floor, plants near the sunlight.

Kit, bespoke, or something you already own

There are broadly three routes into an outside office:

Modular or kit buildings arrive pre-made or flat-packed and go up in a matter of days. They’re the cheapest route, the fastest, and the least stressful but the trade-off is fixed sizes and a fixed look. If your garden is a straightforward rectangle with decent access, this is often the sensible answer. This is what I have in my own garden.

Bespoke builds are designed around your space, which matters enormously on awkward plots sloping gardens, narrow side returns, that one immovable tree. You’ll pay more and wait longer, but it will fit your space exactly as you want it to.

Converting something you already have like a garage, an old brick outbuilding etc. is frequently the best value per square metre, but damp and cold are the enemies here. Budget for a damp-proof membrane, proper insulation throughout, and quite possibly a new roof. Done well it’s wonderful. Done cheaply it’s a cold room you won’t use.

Where to put your outside office

Think about light first. North-facing glazing gives soft, consistent light all day and almost no screen glare — counter-intuitive, but ask any artist. South-facing gives you sunshine and a squint. If you love the sun, have it, but add blinds and take the cooling seriously.

Think about access for the build. Can a digger and a delivery lorry actually reach the site? If the only route is through your house, you need to know that before anyone quotes, not on the morning three men arrive holding a wall panel.

Think about drainage. Avoid the boggy corner. Water will find it.

And leave some garden. It’s tempting to maximise the footprint, but a building that swallows the entire lawn tends to breed resentment in everyone else who lives there.

I hope this has given you some thoughts about how to make the most of your space and create a thriving working environment without impacting your family life at home.