Wooden summerhouses are a booming part of the economy for several reasons: First of all, gardening is becoming more and more popular. Growing your own organic, healthy, and pesticide-free food is just one motivation. Studies that have proven that gardening can improve a variety of physical and mental disorders, and, last but not least, a garden offers the opportunity to create something that shows your style and makes a statement about your attitude towards nature in general which has become more and more important in times of environmental pollution and destruction. Today more than ever before, a garden has the potential to become a private little paradise. More and more people realize that, and want to create a garden of their own.

Once you have your own garden, you might soon realize that it becomes more inhabitable, more inviting with a summerhouse in it, be it a simple garden shed to provide the gardening tools and materials a place where they are needed, or an inhabitable garden room, designed to spend time in.

There are some different ways that wooden summerhouses can be categorized which we will examine in the following article. These will also mirror their potential functions and thus provide you with a valuable means to choose the summerhouse which is exactly right for your purposes.

A little typology of wooden summerhouses

We will just deal with the types of summerhouses that are relevant to our portfolio here. We have already covered the many advantages of wooden summerhouses over summerhouses or sheds built from other materials in other articles. Species of timber, drying and treatment is consistent in all our products that are made from durable, tightly-grained Northern Spruce, carefully kiln dried to 18% moisture before further processing, and the underfloor materials are generally delivered with protective treatment. So no need to put up any categories here.

In regard to function some ways of categorization actually can help you to choose a summerhouse model that fits your planned purposes best. These would be:

• Size
• Wall thickness
• Multi-purpose-functionalities
• Style

Another category might be helpful in the UK if you are trying to avoid planning permission. In this case, the category of summerhouses and log cabins with roof heights below 2.5m would be the category to have a closer look into.

Size

Do you need a storage for some gardening tools and a wheelbarrow? Maybe a sack of organic fertilizer, too? If that’s really all you are after, our selection of small summerhouses will probably fit your needs. Here you will find cosy little garden rooms as small as four square metres. If you don’t need any option of also sitting in there, maybe during a shower, you might also look for storage sheds that are available in very small sizes even without any windows.

The category of medium-sized summerhouses spans sizes from 8sqm to 24sqm. These are full-grown garden rooms suitable for a variety of purposes like a garden lounge, a garden office, a studio, a guest room, or a holiday – or weekend cottage. Some of them are also very well suited to house hobby rooms, workshops, fitness rooms, or garden saunas. And, of course, the typical multi-purpose garden shed used for relaxing, book reading, or meditation as well as being the logistical hub for all the gardening plus storage for all kinds of things like garden furniture, bicycles, and old pieces of furniture from the main house can be found here.

Our large summerhouses are almost all designed to be inhabited at least temporarily. They can be used as holiday houses, weekend cottages, classrooms, large offices with many workstations, surgeries, exhibitions, sales rooms, or public offices of practitioners of all kinds.

In the private garden they might provide room for a new company to grow, they might give a comfortable home to your guests, they might serve as a space for older children or other relatives who will enjoy a separate realm of their own. Larger storage units as well as bungalows to rent out to paying guests can be realized in this category as well as multi-purpose buildings that serve a variety of usages simultaneously without getting crammed easily.

Wall thickness

Summerhouses with less wall thickness can well serve their purpose even with just 22-28mm thick walls. They belong to the smaller wooden summerhouses, and they are mostly not inhabited or just used as a classical summerhouse only during the warmer parts of the year. For their smaller dimensions wall planks of these thicknesses are sufficient to create a sturdy and reliable building. Compared to buildings with thicker walls, they offer very affordable prices.

Our most popular summerhouses, though, lie in the category of 40 – 44mm wall thickness. This wall thickness is suitable also for very large summerhouses, and all our wall planks of 40mm or more will be joined together with double tongue and groove connections to increase overall stability and make the walls absolutely tight.

Our summerhouses with 58mm wall thickness are available for just a little more money, and they already lean heavily towards the direction of all year round inhabitable log cabins that can also be used as main houses to live in. Any summerhouse that you want to heat and insulate, and that you want to inhabit for a lifetime and possibly even inherit to your children will profit from just a little more wall thickness. Lifelong sparing of energy costs can be achieved by an effective insulation and wood is in itself a very powerful, natural insulation material.

For our category with the strongest wall thicknesses of 70-92mm, it might be interesting to know that you would have to make a stone wall 42cm thick for it to have the same thermal insulation value as a wooden wall of just 70mm.

Of course, in this category the number of rooms in the house might be another useful category to look at.

Multi purpose-functionallities

Real multi-purpose often supplies to the need of having a building for the gardening plus a building used for a purpose that does not go well with mud and dirt from the garden like saunas, garden offices, garden lounges etc. For these kinds of multi-purpose usage we offer summerhouses with integrated tool sheds under the same roof.

Another kind of multi-purpose-functionallity would be a summerhouse where you can decide if you want to sit or dine inside or al fresco. This is possible in summerhouses with verandas.

Gazebos present some extra functionality in that gazebos are open to the surrounding. A roof provides shelter while fresh garden air flows all around you, and gazebos also have a strong decorational value.

BBQ huts and grill kotas are mostly hexagonal or octagonal, and they have a central grill oven to grill some fresh produce from the garden with your friends, or to heat them up when used during colder times of the year.

You can find special functionality in summerhouses that are specifically well suited to become a garden office or a garden sauna. These buildings can, of course, also be fitted to serve any other purpose.

Style

Some people think that wooden summerhouses would support a natural, rustic country style most of the times. While wooden garden buildings like sheds and log cabins often fit that style, it is entirely up to you, which style you want to give to your garden building for example by painting it, or decorating it with plants, flower boxes or other decorations.

Our selection of contemporary summerhouses features garden rooms with flat roofs and a modern, minimalistic style with long lines and floor-to-ceiling windows and generally large window areas that combine very well to contemporary architecture. Needless to say these windows are all double-glazed as the summerhouses are designed for at least periodical inhabitation.

Another special kind of style is represented by hexagonal and octagonal garden summerhouses. These pavilions and gazebos display a more round, more natural shape that fits especially well into every garden and is often used to become a decor element, or they may be presented as a highlight in the garden by the surrounding garden landscaping.

For any questions, please contact us or call Oliver at 020 3807 0369!