From bomb shelter to garden office

Sometimes a garden office project will throw up an unexpected challenge. World War Two came back to haunt a recent eDEN Garden Rooms project in Deal, when a bomb shelter was discovered as groundworks started!

Bomb shelter discovered as the site was cleared

As part of their service the eDEN Garden Rooms team clear the site of vegetation, before starting work on the building. In clearing the site, a 3m x 3m sinkhole appeared beneath the intended site for the office. eDEN’s clients were unaware that there had ever been a bomb shelter in their garden!

The bomb shelter had been filled with rubble, tyres and gas cylinders and then topped with a concrete slab.

A unforeseen site issue like this could have halted the project. The eDEN Garden Rooms team, however, took control of the situation on their clients behalf and contracted a specialist groundworks company to clear the site and rectify the problem so that work could continue.

Normally, project managing an addition job like this would be beyond the scope of a garden office project. But at no cost, they project managed the work on their client’s behalf to ensure it was as stress-free as possible. eDEN’s clients settled the bill for the groundwork’s directly with the contractor. It’s good to hear that a company like eDEN Garden Rooms will do everything they can to ensure a successful project.

The specialist contractor removed the waste from the site and then filled the sinkhole with compacted Type-1 hardcore and then laid a new concrete slab. This new slab formed the foundation for the garden office.

Larch clad garden office with secret storeroom

Once the dramas were over, the eDEN Garden Rooms team started work on the installation of a 6.6m x 3.8m garden office with secret storage room. The project was built under the Permitted Development rules.

The main room is a sizeable 5.1 meters wide, with a 1.1 meter wide storeroom alongside. eDEN Garden Rooms are specialists at creating this type of dual-use garden building. Here are a few other examples they have designed:

• Narrow garden office with shed
• Room to spend time in all year round
• Family room slots into terraced house garden

Unusually, this eDEN Garden Room has been clad in Siberian Larch. The majority of eDEN’s designs, we see, are clad in Western Red Cedar. Siberian Larch is a durable cladding material like Cedar but significantly cheaper. Siberian Larch has mellow honey coloured finish and more knots than Cedar, but as we can see still looks great when paired with dark grey aluminium bi-fold doors and trims.

The vertical cladding has been carefully detailed around the door to the storage room. Resulting in a door that is almost invisible. Who would know this building had two distinct uses!