We are liking this Cedar garden pod by Sanctum Garden Studios. It's the simplicity of the design that has taken our eye. The Cedar cladding is allowed to shine in all its natural beauty, and we like the unusual door configuration.
The garden pod is 3m x 2.4m, so about the size of a small bedroom. This size is ideal as a home office or artists studio — it's a good size building that won't dominate the garden.
A different door configuration
Often with a garden pod this size, you will find the whole of the front wall is glazed, usually with a mix of French doors and long windows or sliding doors.
This project, however, is different in that a large section of floor to ceiling glazing has been set to one side of the front wall. Unusually, this is made up of a single glazed door with long window alongside. We think this is a modern twist on the more traditional French door / long window combos we normally see.
On the end wall, a fanlight opening window has been positioned at desk height. This will frame a view of the garden as the owner sits at their desk. It is a good idea to mix an opening window like this into a garden pod, as it offers an easy way of ventilating the room.
Beautiful Cedar cladding
This garden pod is taken from Sanctum Garden Studios Contemporary Range. As standard, the pods are clad in Western Red Cedar tongue & groove boards. Fixed vertically, like this, they create a stylish, modern finish.
As we can see from these images, the Cedar boards differ in colour, ranging from a dark brown to a more honeyed tone. Mixed together, they add a lot of character to the building.
Western Red Cedar cladding is a durable finish that will last for decades with little or no maintenance. Unless a UV-oil is applied when new, the Cedar will weather to a soft silver grey. This does not affect the durability of the material; it just changes its appearance. How long this will take, will depend on each wall's exposure to the sun.
Save money on a plastered, decorated finish
The interior of this garden pod has been plasterboarded and decorated, creating a room like in a new build house. This is a high spec finish in garden room design and is one of the more expensive finishes you can choose.
This is because it takes skill to do well, and needs time to dry between the plastering and decorating. This means you have the installation team on-site for extra days.
Sanctum Garden Studios offer you two options when it comes to their plastered, decorated finishes. One option is that they will apply the finish themselves as part of the overall installation process. Conscious of the cost of this, they offer the option of installing the plasterboard for you and leaving you to engage a local plasterer to apply the skim of plaster. This option, tends to save their customers money.
It was the second, money-saving option that Sanctum Garden Studios customer opted for. They are clearly happy with how the project worked out:
I would like to send a big thanks for the most amazing job the team did. From the moment they arrived (on time), until the moment they departed (ahead of time), they were magnificent. Really lovely chaps all of them, and what a brilliant job. Even though your guys were here on the only inclement day for the last few weeks it did not deter them. In fact, I think they preferred the rain to the sun. There was a great atmosphere, and a few little extra bits were taken in full stride. It was a great pleasure to have them all here, and a wonderful garden room now sits proudly in our back garden.
Becky & Andy, Brighton
