What makes it a room
A studio shed or backyard office starts as the same frame as a good shed, built for yards around Saint John. It is finished for a person instead of a mower, and the difference is in the openings and the inside.
Glass comes first. A sliding patio door or a glazed entry door, and windows placed where the light will fall on the work. A mono-pitch roof slopes one way, which gives you a tall wall to run a high window along. You get daylight and the neighbours do not get a view of your desk.
Then the inside. The pine-lined room further down has a curved boarded ceiling, a glazed door and windows looking into the trees. That is the kind of finish we mean when we say finished inside.
Finished for how you use it
How the inside gets finished, and what goes into the walls, is worth settling on the phone before anything is priced. It depends on the building and on how you plan to use it through the year.
Tell us how you will use it, because that changes the room. A painter wants big windows and a floor that cleans up. Someone on calls all day wants a door that shuts, a quiet corner and outlets by the desk. A music room wants the windows away from the neighbour’s bedroom.
A few we have built
The poolside building opens toward the pool through a sliding patio door, with windows along the front. On a summer afternoon it is part of the yard. With the door shut, it is a room.
The charcoal one has an angled roofline and a high horizontal window, which keeps the inside private and still bright. In the photograph it is on the trailer, finished and ready to go out.
The tan one at the top of the page is the same idea in a plainer coat: board and batten, a mono-pitch roof, a patio door and a wide window, set on a fresh gravel pad at the edge of the woods.
Getting it into the yard
Most studios arrive in one piece, so the finished inside is not built in your yard in the rain. It is set down on a gravel pad or on blocks. A level base matters more here than anywhere, because a patio door only keeps sliding smoothly on a building that stays square.
Before you ask, think about the walk from the back door, which way the windows should face.
Then pick studio or office in the form below and say what you will do in it. You will get a price for that room, free, with nothing signed. For anything this page does not answer, call the shop.
Before you build.
- Do you do the electrical?
- No. We build the studio and deliver it finished. Wiring is arranged separately, so plan for it if you want lights and outlets out there.
- Do I need a permit for a backyard studio?
- Call and ask. It depends on the building and the property, and it is better talked through than guessed at on a web page.
- How much does a studio cost?
- More than a plain shed of the same size, because of the glass and the finished inside. There is no list. Describe the room in the form and you get a price for that room, free.