Garden Room

After all the trials and tribulations of doing our own renovations, we are finally in a position to get someone else to do some work for us. I had a hankering for a room filled with light... Our house is fairly dark inside. My husband thought I meant a lean-to on the house with enough room for a couple of chairs. Nope. I meant a proper big room where we could socialise and leave the doors open in the summer and enjoy the day come rain or shine. So, this is the result. Basically we asked the builder who did our roof whether he would be interested. We told him what size we wanted, and he got on with it.

It was wonderful to see it being built on a daily basis, between showers, that is. This is Ireland, after all.

The windows and doors all came from a development that failed... so were cheaper than brand new ones. The builders simply incorporated the design to fit them.

The roof is almost flat, which seemed daft given the rain we have here, but new materials make this viable. The roof was laid with fibreglass, and the young men in the photo on the right are are spreading the finishing coat.

Being into geology, Robin wanted to keep a bit of the bedrock exposed, so the inside floor was made in two levels. The bricklayer kept shaking his head. 'You've ruined a good room,' he said. But the room is unique and fun!

The tiny lobby inside what was once the front door was  still bare concrete, so the tiler was supposed to come back to finish it in the same tiles. He never turned up, so my husband and I ended up doing this bit. The picture in the middle shows where once again we had to dig up hollowed out concrete and redo the floor before we could finish the tiling.

And this is the bit where we get to sit and consume a bottle of wine! We did get a friend to construct a handrail along the 'drop', leaving steps at each end. We have a dining table in the lower section, and comfy seating in the top section. From here we are almost sitting in our garden, which was the whole plan.