Take a look inside some of Norfolk's best 'shoffices'

Their popularity is going through the roof - a result of the pandemic, where many of us had to work from home, prompting some businesses to reduce their physical office space, and an experience during which many of us took stock and re-examined our own work-life balance.

But no longer do we want to, or can we, put up with a corner of the dining table or under-stairs hovel. It's not doing us any good physically or mentally. The hybrid worker is now thinking of ways around it, and what better than the 'shoffice'. A bespoke, fully insulated, French-doored garden room built to the highest standards, just a hop, skip and jump away from our back door.

Building the best

Tristen Read and his team (Read Garden Rooms) design and build bespoke garden rooms for people to use as home offices, gyms, art studios, whatever it is their hobby or need for extra space might require.

Timber structures, they're built to stand separate from the house and can be placed wherever people decide they would like them - whether it's at the bottom of their garden, if they've got a nice view or simply tucked away into a corner.

"The rooms we build are like miniature houses, really," says Tristen. "They're fully insulated, they've got power, heating and Internet. It's all plastered, painted and built to a really high, comfortable spec."

After an initial enquiry's made, Tristen talks to his customer about what they're hoping to achieve, what they're going to be using the room for and roughly what sort of size and appearance they'd like. Then, assuming it's all doable, he goes out and does a site survey and consultation, talking them through the process and materials he'll use.

"For the build itself, we turn up and install the foundation piles. We then build the base frame, construct the walls and roof, insulate it, install windows and doors and the roofing system, something called an EPDM rubber roof. An electrician is called in, then a team of plasterers, and once it's dry, we decorate it all."

The laminate flooring is laid, complemented by skirting boards, so the inside and the structure are finished at that point and attention can be turned to the outside. "On quite a few of our projects we do landscaping, so composite decking is quite a common one," he says. "People like to have seating out the front or somewhere for a table and chairs, which is nice."
This young, Rockland St Mary-based business was only officially started by Tristen and his brother-in-law Ross, both company directors, in September 2020, with the help of Aiken Parker who helps with the builds. The three of them work on projects across Norfolk and Suffolk from start to finish, full-time.
After joining Anglian Water on its graduate programme, where he worked as a manager for six years, it was building his own garden room three years ago which prompted Tristen to put his dreams into action.

"I had always wanted to run my own business and be self-employed," he explains. "When Covid first struck, I saw an opportunity where people needed to work at home and wanted more space, so I set the business up at that time. The company was registered in September 2020, we built our first rooms from January 2021 onwards and we've been flat out ever since."
The trio takes care of everything from start to finish, working with clients on the design right the way through to the completed room. Builds usually take two to three weeks, depending on the size. If it's a self-contained annex, the customer may need additional work to be completed, such as a small sewage pumping station and water main to serve a bathroom, as well as sorting the internal stud work and plumbing.

"We do all the foundation work. We build it, paint it, clean the windows, hoover up and hand over a completely finished product," he says. "It's like a turnkey property."

"I think demand has definitely grown, primarily due to Covid," says Tristen. "It began with people's need and since then has become their desire to work from home or do hybrid working. It might be they’ve had an office job previously, they're in the office two or three days a week, then they're working from home the other days."
The team often works with people who've been sat for the last two years working at dining tables and in spare bedrooms - not particularly comfortable or productive positions.
"Being able to have a garden room which is completely separate from the house gives the physical and psychological separation of work and home life," Tristen explains. "It sounds a little daft, but even if you're walking 10 metres to your garden room, if you're going there to work, that's what you use it for. Then, at the end of the day, you can leave your laptop out there and you've not been in the same four walls for 24 hours. Psychologically, it's far healthier and is part of the reason people like them."

The bar's been well and truly raised in terms of what's commercially on offer, along with that so have people's expectations and requirements. If it's a standard log cabin or shed you're wanting, there are plenty of companies that will do that, but it's not something Tristen offers at the moment.
"What we offer is at the upper end of the market. We're using premium quality materials. We're not a 'stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap' outfit. Every build of ours is a one-off and we do one job at a time."

And people use them for all sorts of things, not just for work. It might be working out, too, with home gyms, yoga studios and even art and music studios all on the list of previous projects. Or it could be a combination - the project Tristen is working on as we speak will be transformed into a space for a drum kit and treadmill in a back garden in Bunwell in a few short weeks.
For those needing a bit of extra space, but are perhaps put off by the cost or disruption of extending, Tristen has worked with home owners who have used his garden rooms as an alternative.

"We've built one as an annex which had full building regulations approval, which had two bedrooms, a lobby and a shower room with basin and toilet, " he says. "The family we made that for had a three-bed semi-detached property, which they couldn't extend without massive expense.

“The garden room was an ideal solution because it takes away knocking the house around, the disruption and saves on additional expense. You can have something which has minimal disruption on your life and at the end you can move your stuff in."

'Having a home office means I can switch off in the evenings'

Will Mitchell, 29, is the co-owner of Match Fit, a PR and remote-first PR and sponsorship agency in football whose clients include the Football Association, the English Football League and LiveScore.

Welcome to The Dugout - a 6 x 4 metre space with a simple, modern design which looks back across the garden to the end of the house. Clad in larch, with a flat roof and boasting big, French, double doors at the front, it's where Will spends most of his days working for the company he co-founded in 2019.

"We started working from home before Covid, it's the way we set the business up," explains Will. "I'm based in Norwich, the other co-founder, Donald, is based in Colchester and we work from home four days out of five. The other days we'll be travelling around for meetings or events."

A Norfolk lad, Will began working from home when he relocated back to the county with his fiancée after having worked in sports sponsorship in London for several years. "She's from Norfolk too, so the calling back here was strong, but I wanted to stay in my industry, which is relatively niche," he says.

With much of Will's work in London or Manchester, working from an office wasn't really an option for him, and working from home was a necessity. 'Home' at that time was a two-bed flat near to Carrow Bridge in Norwich, where Will, like many of us have since found over the last two years, worked from a table in the corner of the living room.

"It was quite a tricky environment because I struggled to separate my work life with my personal life," he says. "I was spending all day, every day in the same room, and just physically being in that same space, I found it difficult mentally to switch off and separate the two.

"I'd find myself working late into the evenings, or I'd migrate with my MacBook onto the sofa, so it was 8pm and I was still tapping away,” says Will. "As a small business owner, you always feel like you could do more, so I found it quite difficult with that blurring of the two spaces."

That experience meant that when the couple began house hunting, the option of a separate homeworking space was absolute must-have. "It was almost top of my list, to separate the two spaces and have a garden office so that when I finished a day's work I could shut the door, walk down the garden path and feel like it was the moment my personal time started and I could enjoy the evening,” he says.

So much so, that when the couple moved into the house in November 2020, Will had had it designed and built by the following spring.

"It's right at the end of the garden," he describes. "I designed it all the way through from the first concept stage with a bit of inspiration from similar builds I liked online. I mixed a few together then found a really good provider in a chap called Steve Kersey at Image Home Improvements, and we worked together to create my office.”

With Covid and supply issues it was tricky at times. The larch cladding took ages to get in, just like lots of other things in the building industry, so it took a bit longer to get in than I wanted but we got there eventually.

And not only has it meant that Will can grow his business, his being able to leave his home and walk down to the end of the garden, even though not far away, has had a hugely positive affect on his personal life too. "It's been a massive help to me mentally - making sure you can switch off as much as possible. That change of location has been a game-changer for me, really," he says.

"I'm often on client calls, and in the summer when I have my door open it sounds like I'm on a live episode of Springwatch or something" he laughs. "You can hear the birds tweeting in the garden and it's nice to look out on a really sunny day seeing nature pass you by. That said, it makes you want to do a lot more to your garden, that's for sure!"

And that means this year Will is going big on lawn renovation - bigger, better and greener. Think bowling green or tennis court!

His partner works from home two days a week, and whilst they don't share the office, Will does have a workmate in the form of his 15-month-old sheepadoodle called Pepper, to keep him company.

With the rising cost of fuel, Will's garden office fares pretty well in terms of heating. "It's surprisingly warm," he says. "It's really toasty and very well-insulated. I don't have the heating on, even when it's cold outside. There's nothing more to it than an oil-filled electric radiator in here."

So, the future looks very much shoffice-based for Will.

"I think it will be a nice investment," he says. "Wherever I live, I'd probably think about having a garden room, whether it's simply for a garden room, or an office, or yoga/Pilates studio. And hopefully it will be seen as a really attractive part of the house too."

'We turned our rehearsal space into a new business'

Caron and James Robinson are musicians who gig across East Anglia and beyond. The parents of three children, and owners of a Romanian rescue dog, guinea pigs and a tortoise, they were in need of extra space for work and recreation, separate to their three-bed, semi-detached home in Stoke Holy Cross near Norwich.

Their purpose-built garden room offers a rehearsal and writing space, as well as an office and tuition room for online music lessons, which they began during lockdown.

"We needed more space to be able to practice, rehearse, write parts, store instruments and do office work," says Caron. "We built it straight away when we moved in, mainly because the garage we had leaked like a sieve and wasn't really fit for purpose! But we needed the extra space to be able to have privacy away from the house, and I could do any office work away from the house, too."

The husband and wife team had a good idea of what they wanted when it came to the design, having visited friends who had similar set-ups at their homes.

"We went round to one friend in particular for a snoop, and we fell in love with it," laughs James. "We used hers as inspiration and just explained that we wanted it a bit bigger to suit our needs. It was a pre-fab pretty much, but we tweaked the design a little. The thickness of the wood was one thing; the thicker the better for the wood as it's warmer in winter and cooler in the summer."

The pair went through Scott Sheds at Longwater in Norwich and worked with them on the design and building of their garden studio. "When you get to the part about putting it together, making it yourself is a bit of a nightmare because of the requirements you have to stick to," explains James.

"We didn't want to do anything wrong in case we'd have to take it down. It had to be under 2.4 metres high, for example. That's why we wanted someone else to do it who knew the regulations we would have to abide by. Another thing was that it had to be 2 metres away from the property boundary. Had we built it ourselves, we might not have realised things like that."

When the pandemic hit the performing arts, the gigs stopped. As their main source of income, the pair needed to come up with another way to pay the bills. This saw them begin to teach online music lessons, which they could do in the privacy, and minus fear of interruption, from their garden room. The extra space meaning James and Caron could run lessons simultaneously - one from the house and one outside - something they've continued.

As musicians, rehearsing and practicing is a must. The great thing is, the studio is soundproofed, so it's less intrusive for the neighbours. "We were trying to be conscious of our neighbours as well," says Caron. "So, we thought if we took it outside where it's soundproofed, it would be a bit more considerate.

"Overall, the garden room gives us more opportunity to use our time constructively. We love it!"

'I love having my salon at home'

Beauty therapist Jasmine Edridge has worked 'mobile' since she qualified around 10 years ago. But that was then, and this is now. Today she has a modern 8 x 12ft garden salon that's transformed her business and how she manages her work and personal life.

A full range of beauty treatments is on offer; everything from nails, waxing, facials, massages and tinting, all in elegant surroundings, from, you guessed it... the end of the garden.

Before its addition, Jasmine was working from a room in her home - a setup which became more difficult to manage over the years. "Finding the space to work, having people in and out of the house and making sure they were comfortable, it was getting more difficult juggling family and work life," she explains. "I liked the idea of a garden room because it separated work from home."

The materials were ordered online and the room itself was put together in the summer of 2019. It was a case of building the base, then the frame, insulating it, running electricity to it, then making it look pretty with the cladding.

"I love it," says Jasmine. "It looks really chic and modern. I think it looks really lovely in the garden and when you open the French doors, mine brings the garden into the room as well."

The space allows plenty of room for a nail bar and massage couch, and there's a sofa too - ideal for groups of friends who book in for pamper parties for birthdays, hen dos and special occasions, knowing they can all be comfortable.

"The customers love it too," says Jasmine. "They can come down the side of the house, it's private, and they can have the place to themselves if they'd like."

Fully insulated, with a little support from an electric heater for the really cold days, it's always a comfortable temperature so it doesn't matter what the weather's like outside. If it's a nice, warm day the bifold doors can be opened, which makes the most of its location.

The new garden addition has really brought the division of the working and personal life Jasmine needed and wanted. "It's nice to have the separation because ideally you wouldn't have your work and home life mixing really closely, ideally," she says. "So, when I close the doors at the end of the day I can switch off."