I’m a real working-from-home enthusiast. I’ve done it for over a decade and I find it so enjoyable. Not only is my commute very short and eco-friendly (yes, I walk the ten yards to my home office!) but I also have a fun space to work in that’s personalised to me.

Even though many people like the office environment, it’s possible to create a space that’s equally as productive as your desk at work even when you’re working from home. In fact, I find that I get more work done at home because it’s nice and quiet, plus there are no distractions from colleagues chatting or needing me to take on extra last-minute tasks.

The main issue with working from home is when you haven’t got a dedicated office space to work in. If you need to pack away your laptop after working at the kitchen table, or if you’ve not got space for your files at your under-stairs alcove desk, I’m sure you’ll find WFH easier and more enjoyable if you create a proper home office.

But if you don’t have a spare room, where can you work? The garden! If you’ve got a patch of space outside, no matter how small, you can make use of it for your own home office. Perhaps you can convert a garage or you could try adding one of these options:

My little vintage caravan

For many years, I’ve had a vintage caravan in my garden that I converted into my home office. I bought it for £100 delivered, repainted the outside and repaired the windows to make sure it’s weather-proof. I then redecorated it to create a space that I love to work in.

Removing most of the interior of my little vintage caravan gave me more space for my paperwork and books, and I kept the bench seating and table to work at, which enables it to be converted into an extra spare bedroom if really needed – although I’ve only stayed in it once!

It was a handy WFH solution for me because I didn’t have to lay a concrete base – it just sits on slabs – and the wheels mean it’s technically not a garden structure so is less likely to need permission from the local council – but do check the regulations in your area if you fancy having a little vintage caravan for a home office.

A dedicated garden office

If that option feels a bit too temporary for you, you can check local planning regulations and see if you’re permitted to build a dedicated garden office instead. This building can be insulated so that it’s usable all year round and will have electrics fitted so that you can add lights and your tech essentials.

A garden office doesn’t have to be expensive – they’re usually made from timber, which makes them more affordable and less likely to require planning permits than a brick-built option. They can be clad in wood, metal or durable composite materials to create different looks from traditional to modern. You can visit this website to get some ideas on the different garden office options available.

The joy of having an office in the garden is landscaping around it so that it fits into the space seamlessly with trees, shrubs and potted plants. I’ve got a cherry tree and rose bushes right outside my garden office and one of the things I personally love about working there is fully opening up the window and hearing the birds singing while I work almost-outside amongst nature.

This type of structure is more permanent and weather-proof so you can decorate it the same as you would with a spare room office – choose your favourite wallpaper, paint colours, soft furnishings and practical desk. It’s your chance to make the space unique to you and create an office that you actually want to work in!

Image by Life of Isatu – I’ve written about her lovely home here.

Beach hut

Finally, a fun idea is to use a beach hut as a garden office. I’ve known a few writers who work from home in beach huts, sheds, shepherd’s huts, summerhouses and everything in between. Basically, it’s about using a cheap timber structure and making it a handy space for work.

You’ll probably need to do a lot of work to an existing shed to turn it into a workspace because it won’t have electrics, the interior walls won’t be insulated or lined with plasterboard, and the roof will definitely need to be more substantial than felt-covered board.

Even so, if you just want to escape to somewhere quiet with your laptop, there’s no reason why a summerhouse wouldn’t be a nice place to work when the weather is nice. Again, you can throw the doors open and let the fresh air in. Just don’t forget to also position a bird table just outside the window to attract some garden birds and provide that lovely soundtrack of birdsong while you work!

image by LucyLovesYa – I’ve written about her beach hut garden room here.

A Calming Garden Companion

One of the main benefits of working from home is that it allows you to have animals. Of course, it’s a massive undertaking to adopt a pet and it should always be thoroughly thought about – especially in terms of holidays, care and costs. But if you’ve always wanted to have a furry or feathered companion, being available at home during the working day allows this to become a possibility.

Although cats are loving but fairly self-sufficient and dogs are loyal companions but need more attention, you might also want to consider a different option in the small pets category. For example, adding Jubilee Orpington chickens near your garden office can create a soothing and inspiring atmosphere. These friendly and beautiful birds bring life to your outdoor space, making work breaks more enjoyable. Their gentle clucking and striking appearance can help reduce stress and boost productivity while working from home.

What do you think of these ideas for a unique garden office? Would you enjoy working from home in one of these options? Please let me know in the comments below if you have an interesting garden office or have hacked an office space in your home, I’d love to get your WFH tips!

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How have you found working from home? Have you actually enjoyed it a little more than going into the office? Have you got more work done in your distraction-free home? Would you like to continue working from home in the future? If you’ve become a fan of the work from home laptop lifestyle over the past year, perhaps now’s the time to really commit to it and create a home office for yourself…

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Go on, you can admit it – there are bonuses to WFH aren’t there? Such as having no commute, working in your comfy clothes, getting a cuppa whenever you fancy and taking a break at 10:30 every morning for Popmaster on Radio 2 – am I right?? But what we haven’t enjoyed quite so much is the lack of space (and sometimes privacy) of not having a dedicated home office. Many of us have been working on dining tables, on desks tucked under the stairs and even on laptrays on our beds. It’s comfy, sure, but it’s not the most productive way to work.

So today I’m exploring some home office options that you can easily add to your garden to give you the space and peace you need while working from home. Perhaps you’ve even had a change of job over the past year and needed to go freelance or to start up your own indie business. Both of these activities will no doubt be improved if you can take your business off the kitchen table and set up a dedicated space for you to work.

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LOG CABINS

A neighbour of ours has recently had a log-cabin installed in their garden and I couldn’t quite believe how quickly it appeared. One morning a truck pulled up and only a few hours later the roof was on and they could start using their new home office straight away. Okay, I’m sure not all log cabins are as easy to install: it’ll probably depend on the size and complexity of the design, but it seemed to just slot together like a big Lego kit and was finished no time at all. Although many showrooms are closed at the moment, you can still find log cabins for sale online and once it’s been delivered and professionally installed all you have to do is move in your desk and start working.

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Log cabins are a great option if you want a more permanent home office; one that’s perhaps insulated or with electrics installed so that you can work outside in all weathers and at any time of day. They can also be made to much larger sizes than a regular shed, which is ideal if you’ve started a business and need to make products or keep stock in your home office as well as working at a desk. I’ve even seen log cabins converted into unique tiny homes on Airbnb (subject to planning regulations, of course) so it would have a potential future use if you ever go back to working at your company’s HQ when it’s safe to do so.

CARAVANS

How many of us have caravans or campervans sitting on the driveway that aren’t being used at the moment? While holidays are off the cards, why not use the space as your home office? Or, if you’re anything like me, buy a really really old caravan that’ll never go anywhere but that will live in your back garden as a cute home office. When I was living in the world’s smallest 1 bedroom bungalow I desperately needed some space for a home office. I was making products that I sold online and I was working as a freelance writer. So when I saw an old Alpine Sprite caravan for sale for £100, I snapped it up.

I was still road-worthy at the time but it has since moved to it’s final parking spot – it’s fenced into the garden of my new home! It’s watertight, has a table that I can work at and space to store everything I needed for my business. Plus, it’s in a lovely sunny spot I the garden, surrounded by plants and I can open the front window up wide to listen to the birds. Since moving to our new home, I have a home office indoors in the box room, but it’s still nice to work outside from time to time. We also use it for craft projects and for modelmaking with Jim Parkyn.

SHEDS

If you’ve not got much of a budget for creating a home office space, maybe you already have the building you need in your garden? Do you have an old shed? It doesn’t really matter what size or style it is, as long as there’s a roof and a window, you can easily give it a makeover to turn it into a usable outdoor office. The thing to prioritise over decorating or flooring is making sure that the building is sturdy and watertight. So check it over carefully and replace any rotting timbers, renew the felt on the roof and give it a fresh coat of protective garden paint.

Then you can begin to tackle the interior. You might want to clad out the walls with plywood to give you a more finished officey-vibe but you could also just paint the inside of the shed walls in a light or bright colour to instantly transform it into somewhere you would be happy to work. Add offcuts of vinyl flooring or carpet and use solar-powered lights to illuminate the interior. Making use of an existing shed or summerhouse is a good low-cost solution for working outside in the spring and summer, but when the weather cools down and the days get darker you’ll probably want to migrate back inside the house!

What do you think of these ideas for creating a home office in your garden? What are you currently using as your work-from-home base? Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear your tips for creating an office space at home.

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If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll know that I’ve already got a little vintage caravan of my own. It was a £100 bargain that I renovated about 7 years ago and now it has moved to it’s final resting place in my garden. So now, if I want to go camping, we’re going to have to start looking for an alternative – hence today’s blog post about this gorgeous trailer tent.

When we moved my old caravan to our new home three years ago, I wasn’t confident that it would make it. And now that it’s here, I already know that it won’t ever go on the road again. I’m sure that someone with a lot of skills and money could get it roadworthy, but that’s not me – and I only ever intended to use it as a home-office-slash-spare room anyway.

Now it’s literally boxed-in by the garden fence now, and is sunk into a hole to make the door level with the lawn, so it would be a feat of engineering to get it out! It’s still leak-free and I love sitting in my caravan for lunch but it’s definitely more of a summer house for the garden than something to go on holiday in.

Unlike a caravan, this trailer tent folds down when not in use so it’s really compact to store in our garden. Plus, it’s lightweight enough to tow with a car. For those reasons alone, it seems like a sensible option for camping trips in the future.

While I’m not keen on the idea of camping any more (although, give me a spacious teepee or luxury bell tent and I’ll be more than happy to camp!) this trailer tent changes all that. Even though it has canvas sides, it feels so much more substantial than a tent.

For a start, it has proper beds – the ultimate glamping experience! Plus, I can carry everything with me that I need – cooking equipment, radio, even has a table, so it wouldn’t be a struggle like regular tent camping seems to be – for me, at least.

This trailer tent is a Lillebror Chateau Mobile and from my research I think it’s made by a Norwegian company. It’s certainly from the mid-century modern era, which explains the cool wooden interior. I think this is a great contrast with the greeny-teal canvas – so cool.

As a fan of the Living Big In A Tiny House channel on YouTube, I think this trailer tent would satisfy my need to own tiny home AND provide exactly the type of camping I would be happy to do in the future. If anyone knows where I can get one – even a fixer-upper – please let me know!

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Even though I painted the walls as soon as I got my caravan, and I’ve since even added a patchwork wallpaper feature wall, I haven’t done anything to the inside of the caravan’s door.

It’s only now that the interior of the caravan is looking clean and tidy that I’ve even noticed how rough the door looks. It wasn’t even on my radar when I bought the caravan all those years ago but it’s really noticeable now.

The top half is fine, but I think that the bottom half has got damp at some point and the veneer is peeling away in chunks. I decided it was time to tackle the messy surface and got to work with a wallpaper scraper.

To be honest, this wasn’t a difficult task. The now-dry veneer was crumbling away and just needed a quick nudge with the scraper to flake it off. In no time at all I had a flat surface once again and the wood panel beneath the veneer actually looks in okay condition.

So now I’m planning my next move. Should I simply paint the inside of the door? Should I paste on a patchwork of wallpaper again to match the wall? Or should I be inspired by a caravan makeover I spotted on Instagram by @caravan.maude:

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A post shared by jen wiggins (@caravan.maude) on May 9, 2020 at 1:08am PDT

I love the idea of covering the door in fabric like this. I’ve probably got some of the fabric that I used for my bedding left over somewhere so it would coordinate nicely. I used fabric to decoupage a patchwork design onto my mini desk for the caravan so I’m sure it would work on a larger scale for the caravan door.

I’ll let you know how I get on so watch this space! And, in the meantime, I’d love to hear about your own caravan renovations so please leave me a comment below or tag me in your posts on Instagram @cassiefairy.

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of vintage caravans and that I have an Alpine Sprite of my own. I gave it a makeover back in 2013 and it has since moved house with me three times. It’s now in it’s ‘forever home’ in the garden of my 1950s home and is now a summerhouse space where we have lunch, build Lego and play with clay.

So whenever I spot a vintage caravan, I can help but take a look and compare it to my own little Sprite at home. I I took these photos a while ago at a vintage festival but thought that we could all do with a bit of inspiration for our future travels or for our own caravan makeovers at the moment.

I love the streamlined shape of the roof of this caravan. Apparently it’s a Cheltenham model and I think it looks a bit like a loaf of bread – and the cream and brown colours certainly add to this look!

The interior is pretty-much untouched since the caravan was made and it’s great to see the original wooden over-head cupboards and banquette seats.

And you can’t beat an original retro JVC Transistor television for your evening entertainment in a vintage caravan, can you??

The joy of owning an original caravan is sourcing lots of lovely original accessories to adorn the interior. The soda syphons, apple ice bucket and patterned coasters are the perfect decor for the fold-out table.

I’d be perfectly happy going away on a camping trip in this vintage caravan – and it would make a great spare room in the garden too! Let me know if you’ve got a retro caravan at home – I’d love to see photos of it and hear about your renovation project so please do get in touch cassie@cassiefairy.co.uk

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I mentioned previously that 2019 will be the year that we complete our garden makeover. After two years of living with what was, let’s be honest, a wasteland of a garden, I decided that I couldn’t put up with it anymore. I wanted the kind of garden where I could take a cup of tea outside to sit amongst the flowers on a sunny day. I wanted to eat my breakfast outside on a fresh summer morning. And I wanted my friends’ children to have space to play on a tidy lawn.

However, none of that can happen if I don’t have any borders for the flowers to grow in, or a patio for a garden table to sit on, or any grass for the kids to run around on. So that made my to-do list pretty easy to make: 1. Borders, 2. Patio, 3. Lawn. Can it really be as easy as that?

Well, so far, it hasn’t been all that easy, and I’ll tell you why: our garden is on a rather substantial slope. I didn’t really notice it at first when we moved in and, seeing as we haven’t stepped foot into the garden for more than a couple of minutes at a time over the past two years, we simply didn’t realise how much of this slope would need to be ‘moved’ in order to get a flat area where a patio could be laid.

We considered building decking and raising up the deck rather than landscaping the slope of the garden, but that wouldn’t really solve the problem further down the garden. In fact, it would probably make it a little more obvious, as you’d be able to see under the deck from the bottom of the garden! So, after a lot of thinking, we decided that a patio was the only way to go.

You may remember that I moved my caravan up the garden to it’s ‘final resting place’ last year. Just creating a flat area on which the caravan could be parked was an effort. We had to dig out about 2 foot at the top end of the slope and smooth it out down to the existing earth at the bottom end. With the help of my brother (and his sturdy off-road vehicle) we towed the caravan up the garden and into its parking ‘hole’ and that’s where it will stay.

Knowing just how much earth we had to move for that project meant that we were prepared when we started to landscape the rest of the garden last month. We decided to build some retaining walls to terrace the slope into three flat areas. And my husband had the clever idea of turning each retaining wall into a sturdy wooden planter. That way, we had a space to pile in all the soil we were digging out to make the 3 areas flat.

Having read up on the different types of timber and how it can be used in DIY projects, we ordered a batch of pressure-treated timber from the local timber merchant in order to build the planters. It was an exciting day when a lorry arrived and hoisted a load of wood into our garden. We were finally ready to get started!

The sawing and constructing began in earnest and the retaining wall/planters we’re completed within in a day. We then piled in the earth that we were digging out from the bottom of the slope and filled them to the very top. We’re almost ready to start planting them up, really!

The three large planters enclose the space at the top of the garden where the patio will eventually be laid. We want to be able to step down from the patio onto the next terrace (a lawned area) so there’s a gap in the centre of the planters, which will eventually have a 2 steps down from the patio.

We’re planning to add a privacy screen to each of the planters so that we can enjoy breakfast on our patio without being overlooked. This will also give us a trellis-like support that we can grow climbers up, to add even more privacy.

The next phase is levelling off the top part of the garden before laying a patio. Choosing which paving to use has been a bit of a headache so far; I want it to look lovely but I really can’t justify spending a huge amount of money on it. And it seems like every style of paving that I like will cost a small fortune to cover the area we’ve set aside for the patio.

I’ll let you know how I get on with the patio in my next garden blog post and please let me know if you come across any paving bargains as I’d love to cut the cost of my garden makeover, otherwise it simply won’t get finished haha!

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Hubby and I have drawn up the plans and we know – pretty much – how we’d like the garden to be landscaped. I’ve been hoping to get it the garden finished – or at least in some kind of non-wasteland condition – in time to enjoy a glass of something sparkling on my new patio this summer, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we can find the time to do the work!

Previously, my caravan had just been wheeled into the garden and had been left where it was ‘delivered’ by my friends last year. It’s a bulky trailer to shift around, so we haven’t really been able to move it. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to pull it further up the garden and use it as the focal point of the space.

You see, previously I’d used my caravan as a kind of office/garden room and I missed having that space to be creative outdoors. We also loved eating at the little table and would often take our guests outside for meals. So I wanted to recreate this in our new garden and turn the caravan into a more permanent garden structure.

The thing is, I’m pretty sure that my caravan won’t be travelling on the road again. It was a bit of a hairy time getting it to our new home, so I don’t really want to risk taking it out again. It’s a perfectly dry space (in fact, it’s currently storing toys for when our nieces and nephews come to visit!) but the wheels aren’t great and I’m not sure it would be able to do many miles on the road.

So, instead, I want to use it as a summer house and the garden will be it’s final parking place. I’ve therefore decided to set the caravan into the ground a little so that it’s less imposing (always thinking of my neighbours!) and to make the doorway flush with the lawn. The lawn that will be there in the future, that is – at the moment it’s just a slope of wasteland.

To create a ‘hole’ for the caravan to rest in meant that we would have to move a lot of soil and dig into the slope of the garden. I was planning to hire machinery, like a mini digger or similar, to do this task, as well as help to terrace the sloped garden. But one morning my husband just started digging and soon I’d joined in and we had dug a trench that was about two foot deep at the deepest end and a tiny slope at the other.

Luckily the soil wasn’t too compacted or full of stones, so it was very easy to dig. Plus, I enjoy the workout that I get from working in the garden so just imagine the health benefits of digging a giant, caravan-sized hole! Within a couple of hours, the whole space was ‘excavated’ and we had a perfect rectangle in which to park the caravan. We covered the space with weed-proof membrane before we rolled it in and reinforced the sides to keep it safe.

Now the only trouble was moving the caravan. There was no way that we could push it up the sloped garden (believe me, we’ve tried!) so we enlisted the help of my brother and he brought his 4×4 to tow the caravan up the garden and into the hole. It was a pleasing moment when the caravan smoothly rolled into place. The hole we’d prepared was the perfect fit!

So, even though I still don’t have a flat lawn in front of the caravan, at least it’s in it’s parking place and we can start working on the rest of the garden around it. Mum’s given me a crab apple tree so that’ll be the first thing to be planted into my ‘cottage garden’ around the caravan.

I’ll be sharing more photos of our garden progress soon so watch this space!

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The sink has been renewed but the original fridge is still in place, and I can see why: I’d love to have a retro aqua blue fridge in my own caravan!

I love the use of old maps and vintage luggage in this interior. It makes this caravan feel like it’s ready for adventure and wants to get on the road. And that bed looks like the ultimate in home-away-from-home comfort.

The interior is personalised with retro postcards and black and white photos, and the cutest ever nightlight – hundreds of tiny fairy lights in a big jar that looks just like trapped fireflies!

She plans to have the outside of the caravan sandblasted in the near future and has already picked out the ideal colour. Lisa is planning on using a duck-egg blue paint, aptly named “Sea Sprite”, and she hopes to combine this classic cream and glinting chrome ‘jewellery’. I think it’s going to look fantastic when finished and I’ll definitely share some more ‘after’ photos on the blog with you if Lisa sends over some pics once the paint-job is finished!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this nosey around Lisa’s little Sprite caravan today, and that it’s given you some inspiration for your own project, whether that’s a campervan, trailer or even shed! If you too are working on a project like this please let me know in the comments below, and if you’d like to be featured on the blog please email over some snaps to me – I’d love to see some photos!

Remember when I got my caravan on the road again last year? I’d imagined that my caravan would never move again (which was okay with me, as I was using it as my sewing and writing workshop) so you can imagine how excited I was to see those wheels turning again.

It was towed with ease to our new home and I thought that we might be in for a summer of adventures in the caravan last year. However, the year ran away with me and we never did get round to doing all the little jobs needed to turn my ‘office’ back into a functioning holiday home.

This year is going to be different. I’m definitely going to be on the road with my caravan, and do you know why? Because I’m starting the planning for my summer holidays now! That means I’ve got 6 whole months to fit out my caravan with the necessary bits ‘n’ pieces to turn it back into a fully fitted camper.

What’s on the list? Well, aside from the camping kitchen and bathroom facilities that I mentioned in my last post, it really needs a new bed and I’ll tell you why.

I’ve realised that I’ve got a little older since the last time I camped, and nowadays a good bed is essential to my enjoyment of a holiday. Even a swish hotel stay can be ruined by a bad mattress, and that crick in my neck or pinch in my back can sour the whole of the following day. That’s not a good start for a holiday, is it?

The current bed arrangement in my caravan is two bench seats, which convert into a bed using the table inbetween as a base. While the original foam seats (which I re-covered using my in-law’s old bed sheets!) are comfy enough for one night, I don’t think that they would be much good for a long trip away.

I’ve been researching new beds for my caravan and have taken inspiration from all the foldaway beds I’ve seen in campervans over the years. Let’s face it, if one of these beds can fit comfortably into a tiny campervan I’m pretty sure it will fit into the space we have available in the caravan.

I think that a rock and roll bed will be perfect for my little caravan because it can be folded away into a normal bench seat when not in use and then pulled out within seconds when I want to go to bed. The mechanism seems really smooth, and doesn’t involve me putting my back out while wrestling the table between the benches. And that can only be a good thing, right?

Also, I’ll need a few more elements to create a comfortable space for camping, such as a cooking space and some lighting. I don’t need strong overhead lights as there will only be a couple of hours each the evening where I’ll be in the caravan but it’ll be dusky outside.

Seeing as I love fairy lights and neon signs, I’m probably going to use these to illuminate the space in the evenings. I could even use solar-powered lights so I won’t need electricity or batteries – a totally off-grid option. And I can’t imagine anything prettier than having twinkling lights strung up around the caravan – gorgeous!

If the only thing I manage to do to my caravan this year is to make it into a comfy, cosy place for me to stay I’ll be very happy, even if we don’t manage to get away in it during the summer. But at least if I start planning now, I might be somewhere near to completing it in time for an August jaunt!

Let me know if you have a caravan or campervan and what type of bed you use – is it any good? What would you recommend? Let me know by leaving me a comment below or tweeting me a pic to @Cassiefairy.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at her beautifully decorated caravan and that it has given you inspiration for your own festive decorations for next Christmas. Who knows? Maybe you’ll get a campervan project of your own to decorate in 2017?? And if you do, I certainly want to hear about it! Please get in touch if you have completed a caravan makeover or are just starting one because I’d love to see your photos and maybe feature your project on the blog! Leave me a comment below, tweet me @Cassiefairy or email cassie@cassiefairy.co.uk.