Total Sheds
Design Inspiration · 6 min read
Before you buy anything: is your shed worth converting? The honest suitability check, the right order of work — dry, warm, powered, furnished — and when to buy instead.
Use what you've got
The honest suitability check, the right order of work, and the moment to admit a tired building isn't worth converting.
Most garden office articles start at the checkout. This one starts at the bottom of your garden, with the shed you already own. When the building is sound, converting it is one of the most satisfying projects going: a room you've already paid for, a commute of twenty paces, and every improvement earning its keep from the first Monday. We've hand-built garden buildings in our West Midlands workshop since 1995, and we've watched plenty of our older sheds come back to life as offices.
But — and this is the whole article in one sentence — a conversion is only as good as the shell you start with. So before you buy a single board of insulation, do the check below with a mug of tea and a critical eye.
Walk every corner and press down on your heels. A sound, level floor takes a desk, a chair on castors and you, all day. Soft spots, spring underfoot or rot at the edges mean structural repair before anything else.
Inspect it on a wet day, not a dry one. Water stains, daylight at the ridge or felt lifting at the edges all fail the test. Everything you're about to add lives under this roof.
Sight along each wall and swing the door. Racked walls or a door that scrapes mean the frame has moved — and a frame that has moved keeps moving. Sound studs matter too: they're what your insulation and lining will fix to.
Here's the hard honesty. If two of those checks fail, put the wallet away. Insulation, lining, electrics and furniture stacked inside a failing shell is money buried in a building that's already on its way out — you'll do the whole job again in a few years, minus the enthusiasm. Our guide to how long sheds really last will help you judge which side of the line yours sits on. If it passes, carry on — the rest of this page is yours.
Dry first, warm second, powered third, furnished last. Every shortcut in this sequence is a job done twice.
Everything out on the lawn — you can't check a floor you can't see. What earns its way back in is a decision for the end, not today.
Tip: If you haven't touched it in two summers, it doesn't belong in an office.
Check the roof covering, clear the gutter, and fix any damp at its source before a single batten goes on — our <a href="/knowledge-centre/how-to-stop-damp-and-mould-in-garden-shed">damp and mould guide</a> traces the three routes water gets in. If the covering is on its last legs, an EPDM rubber roof kit from our <a href="/aftercare">aftercare range</a> replaces it in a day.
Careful: Never line over damp. Insulation traps whatever it covers — you're not hiding the problem, you're sealing it in with your electrics.
Fill between the framing, manage the moisture, line over the top. The full method, layer by layer, is in our <a href="/knowledge-centre/insulating-garden-room-year-round-use">insulation guide</a>, so we won't repeat it here. The short version: roof first, no gaps, vapour control on the warm side.
Tip: Have the electrician's first fix done before the lining closes the walls up.
Mains power to a garden building is a job for a qualified electrician: armoured cable, its own circuit, sockets and lighting where the desk will actually stand, a certificate at the end. An extension lead through the window is how you power a hedge trimmer, not a room you'll sit in every working day.
Test the internet from the exact desk position before anything heavy goes in — a mesh extender or powerline adaptor covers most gardens, and a hardwired cable is the gold standard if you're already trenching for power. Then, and only then, the furniture.
Tip: Make a video call from a chair in the empty room. If it holds up bare, it'll hold up furnished.
Put the desk under or beside the window, with the screen side-on to the glass — daylight lands on your work instead of bouncing off the monitor, and you're not a silhouette on video calls. A blind earns its keep against low winter sun.
Heating is the reward for doing step three properly: a small insulated room holds warmth from a low-wattage panel heater or oil-filled radiator on a thermostat. Put it on a timer and the office is warm before you are. What we'd never use in a lined building is a bottled-gas heater — every hour of burn breathes water vapour into the room you just sealed.
And for client calls, think soft. A lined, insulated shed is already far quieter than the bare shell; a rug, a curtain and a shelf of books take the last of the echo out, so your voice sounds like a room rather than a box.
The commonest way a conversion fails isn't damp or draughts — it's the mower creeping back in. An office that's also the mower shed stays a mower shed: you walk in on Monday to the smell of petrol and a desk you have to excavate. There are two honest ways out.
Working from a garden building at your own home — laptop, calls, paperwork — is normally fine and needs no one's permission, because the house is still primarily a home. The picture can change if the building becomes true business premises: clients visiting regularly, staff, signage at the gate. That's a question about use, not about the shed itself — if that's you, have a word with your local authority before the fit-out. For the building rules — heights, boundaries and the rest — our planning permission guide puts them in plain English.
Think in weekends, not days: one to empty, check and dry; another or two to insulate and line; the electrician's visits; a last one to connect and furnish. The pace matters far less than the order — dry, then warm, then powered, then furnished.
No — mains power to a garden building should be installed and certified by a qualified electrician. It protects the house, the office and everyone who uses both. An extension lead across the lawn is not an office solution, however temporary it feels.
Between the electrician's two visits. The first fix — cables run, back boxes placed — happens while the framing is open; insulation and lining follow; then the second fix fits sockets, switches and lights to the finished wall. Book the electrician before you start insulating, not after.
Then let it carry on being a good shed — mowers and bikes don't mind a bounce in the floor. Pouring office money into a shell that failed step one is the dearest way to end up buying a new building anyway, a few years late and with the fit-out to redo. A building specced for the job from day one — tanalised framing your insulation can live in, the window placed where the desk will sit — beats a doomed conversion every time. Our garden office guide walks that buying decision through honestly. Either way, delivery is free across mainland UK.
Spec the office your old shed couldn't be in the Build Studio — tanalised framing with a 15-year anti-rot guarantee, and the window placed panel by panel, exactly where the desk will go.
Open the Build StudioReady to put it into practice? Every building is made in our West Midlands workshop with free mainland delivery.
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