A dark-clad garden room with a cedar-lined glazed corner, lit at dusk
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Is My Garden Too Small For A Garden Room?

This question comes up often enough. There are times when the answer is yes, but these are rare. Homeowners thinking their garden is too small for a Garden Room, when it is comfortably big enough, is common.

One of the conditions for a Garden Room to be exempted development (i.e. does NOT require planning permission) is that 25 SQM of amenity space (private space around your home) must be retained. If you take the smallest Garden Room in our Classic Shomera range which measures 3.1 x 3.7 (less than 12 SQM), then the total open space required (this includes areas to the side of the house) is 37 SQM. The vast majority of gardens in houses in Ireland easily exceed this area.

It is important to note the writers of exempted development are experience planners and town planners and the 25 SQM is carefully chosen as sufficient open space. If you consider your garden space as a place for outdoor living, planting and some storage, the amount of space required is less than you’d think. If you use your garden for sitting out or dining, space the size of a large room is sufficient for this (18 SQM), planting along boundaries, etc. (10 SQM).

A Garden Room provides a lovely backdrop to your open garden space and we have customers tell us they use and enjoy the outdoor space more since they had a Shomera installed. If you are thinking about a Garden Room, then you need more living space and we have never had anyone come back to us to say they regret using some of their open space to fill that living space requirement.

Before you make any decision, we advise you have someone come to your home who is experienced in specifying and has viewed hundreds of gardens. At Shomera, we offer this service free of charge and no matter what you decide in the end about a Garden Room, this is a service worth availing of.

a small garden room built by shomera
A garden room with timber cladding and glass doors, used as a home gym, lit at dusk
A small timber garden room under trees at the end of a lawn, with a bench beside it
A small garden room with brick piers, tall windows and a pitched roof, lit at dusk
The corner of a timber-clad garden room beside an old stone wall and a small paved courtyard
A timber-clad garden room with a grey door, between two boundary walls, lit at dusk

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A premium Shomera house extension lit at dusk

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