Started Building A New Home Office

As I have posted before, I work from home. For a number of reasons, my wife and I have decided that I should move the office out of the house and into our garden. So that means that I need a new building in the garden. I spent months reading over the different options and providers. Eventually, I settled on one provider and option.

I’ve chosen to build a “log cabin”, actually a modern wooden building, in our back garden. I’ve chosen all the upgrades for thicker walls, wall/floor/roof insulation, upgraded roof, guttering & drainage, and so on, making it a warm place to work in the winter. If I had to explain it, I’d say it’s Nordic in design. The building is 6 x 4 meters. I went big because it gives me lots of space (better to have more than needed than retreat a smaller choice later) and gives my wife the option of from home too. We paid the deposit last week and are expecting delivery and installation in 5-7 weeks.

The first challenge was where to put the new office. Many of my American friends won’t think that a 6×4 meter building is big or that space shouldn’t be a problem. In Europe, that is big and space is very much a problem. However, I’m lucky, because our back garden was an accident of poor planning by the builder and ended up being ~65 meters long. We were lucky when we bought the house 4 years ago because the previous owner possibly undervalued the site – he didn’t sell through an estate agent.  We have lots of space, most of it hilly, but we have space. After some discussions, it was decided to put the office near the house at the bottom of the garden for 3 reasons:

• Networking convenience
• Power convenience
• The view

The view question was interesting. From the rear of the house, the office will be mostly out of view, with the living parts of the house still looking out onto the back garden. The office will have windows and glass doors on the front, overlooking the garden. So depending on my seating angle, I will be looking out over the green view of the back garden. But there are a few issues.

The first was that there were three nearly-20-years-old birch trees in the exact corner that the office will be going into. I hated the thought of tearing down those trees. But the corner is not used – the trees create a haven for flies and my kids won’t go in there to play – that was my vision for the area. On the other hand, the left side of our garden is lined with a variety of mature trees, we’ve planted 4 more 18 months ago and they are doing well, and both sides are surrounded by trees outside our border wall. So we called up the local handyman who cut down the trees and removed the cuttings – he uses the wood after drying it out.

That was the easy bit! The tree stumps had to be removed next. You can’t just cut/grind a stump down and hope that’s that. Nature is tough. The roots would live on and a new tree could grow through the floor of the office. You have to cut all the roots from the trunk, get under it and lift it out. So out came shovels, an axe and a pickaxe. After 5 hours, 2 of the 3 stumps were removed on Saturday. That was back-breaking work. It turns out that the birch tree grows roots down deep. Those roots are in tick fibrous branches that quickly break out into a mesh of fibres that spread out 3cm to 30 cm deep, protecting the soil around the tree from tools such as shovels and pickaxes. You have to dig, tear and cut just to get through that first few CM of soil and then you face the roots that an axe will bend, not cut. And when you think you’ve cut the last root that is securing the trunk, you find that there are more. It’s Monday now and I’m facing 1 last stump to remove. It’s only in the last few hours that stiffness from Saturday has set in – so today will be fun!

Cutting down the trees revealed something that we had not noticed. The site where the office will reside – about 7m wide, is not level. There is a ~30cm slope going from left to right, and a lesser uneven slope from front to back. The office must be installed onto a level site. I evaluated the options – I hoped that I could dig out one side and use the soil to level out the other side. But that would mean digging under the boundary wall and weakening the foundations. There is no option other than to build a concrete base or pad. At my wife’s suggestion, I went onto the local community page on Facebook and asked for builder recommendations. I reached out to 4 builders – 2 are coming today to give me a quote and one is to call me about making an appointment. I’ll need the pad installed ASAP – concrete sets quickly but takes weeks to harden.

And finally … there’s the electrical installation – something that I know that I cannot do. The cabin manufacturers recommended an electrician. 10 double sockets, lights, a 1.5KW storage heater and connection to the fuse box will clock in at a sizeable sum of change, plus VAT (sales tax). We’ll try to get some alternative quotes for that next.