Backyard Escapes: 8 Luxurious Garden Rooms
These decked-out sheds and cottages are designed for lounging, dining, bathing and creating art
Designed to house guest bedrooms, living rooms, dining areas, painting studios and saunas, today’s high-end outbuildings offer the opportunity to turn a visit to your backyard into a mini vacation. Whether you dream of relaxing at a spa or checking into an artist’s retreat, there’s a backyard room to fit your needs and desires.
Let these eight dream-worthy backyard sheds and cottages inspire your own backyard escape, or just sit back and take a tour of these luxurious outbuildings.
Let these eight dream-worthy backyard sheds and cottages inspire your own backyard escape, or just sit back and take a tour of these luxurious outbuildings.
2. Artist’s studio. For an artist, extra space to spread out can make a big difference. A backyard studio can provide plenty of room for paints, canvases, brushes and other supplies and eliminates the need to clean up and put away an in-progress art piece.
If you’re designing an outbuilding to be a place for embarking on potentially messy projects, look for flooring materials such as linoleum or wood look-alike laminate — both are stain resistant and easy to clean.
If you’re designing an outbuilding to be a place for embarking on potentially messy projects, look for flooring materials such as linoleum or wood look-alike laminate — both are stain resistant and easy to clean.
Three walls of windows look out on the garden in this Bay Area art studio, welcoming in light and inspiration.
3. Scandinavian sauna. Imagine being able to step out into your backyard and enjoy a relaxing steam in a private sauna. The designers of this at-home sauna in Stockholm, Sweden, used a modular garden shed as the bones of the structure, adding interior benches, pine-paneling, a wood-fired sauna heater and an outdoor shower for rinsing off post steam.
Starting with a prefabricated structure or shed kit and then customizing it to suit your needs can be a great way to cut down on building costs.
Starting with a prefabricated structure or shed kit and then customizing it to suit your needs can be a great way to cut down on building costs.
The structure is clean-lined and contemporary, with more than enough luxury to make it feel like a backyard getaway.
4. Year-round barbecue braai. Rainy weather usually puts a damper on cooking outside, but that’s not the case for this outdoor grill. An enclosed outdoor dining room with a wood-fire grill enables the homeowners to enjoy backyard braais — traditional South African-style barbecue — no matter the weather. In spring and summer, the sides of the outdoor dining room can be completely opened to the garden.
During the rainy season, the accordion-style glass sides enclose the room, creating a cozy retreat heated by the warmth of the grill and made all the more inviting with delicious cooking smells.
5. Gussied-up playhouse. While this postage stamp-size cottage (measuring under 100 square feet) in Portland, Oregon, was originally redone with grandchildren in mind, we imagine the space is a hit with children and adults alike. The homeowners used an existing, run-down playhouse as a starting point but made a number of changes to the structure. They replaced the kid-size front door with a larger one and added a front deck and planting boxes beneath the front windows.
They whitewashed the medium-brown pine wood and replaced a small fixed window with a much larger movable one to brighten up the space and also bring in plenty of sunshine and fresh air. Antique beds (modified to fit the snug space) piled with quilts and cushions create an inviting nook for summer reading.
See more of this poolside playhouse
See more of this poolside playhouse
6. Outdoor living room. The owners of a 1920s home in St. Paul, Minnesota, added a Craftsman-style garden room to act as a warm-weather living room and expand their living space. Interior furniture and accessories, such as a cushy sofa, rocking chair, artwork on the wall and twinkling string lights, make the outdoor room feel just as comfortable and inviting as the living room inside the home.
Designed to be enjoyed in warm weather, the outdoor living room is enclosed with screened windows that allow breezes to waft through the room while keeping bugs at bay. Roll-down awnings provide the option of battening down the hatches in winter.
See more of this screened-in pavilion
See more of this screened-in pavilion
7. Garden office. Tucked away behind a home in London, this custom garden office is a well-designed at-home working space. The newly planted garden bed in front was seeded with bulbs, wildflowers and meadow grasses to attract birds and butterflies.
The garden room, made of cedar paneling and sliding glass doors, has a simple, understated design. Positioning the structure at the rear end of the backyard provides an opportunity to get out and enjoy the fresh air on the journey from home to home office.
The garden room, made of cedar paneling and sliding glass doors, has a simple, understated design. Positioning the structure at the rear end of the backyard provides an opportunity to get out and enjoy the fresh air on the journey from home to home office.
8. Backyard lounge. An open-air day bed in this backyard in Mar Vista, California, provides a go-to spot for lounging in the shade in the afternoon or hanging out with friends in the evening. The outdoor room is partially enclosed by three and a half walls and a ceiling, but the open-air design works well year-round in the arid Southern California climate. A large sliding door could be added for more weatherproofing and privacy.
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8 Garden Sheds That Go Above and Beyond
How to Add a Backyard Shed for Storage or Living
Assuming that the sofa turns into a bed, the space could easily be used as a guesthouse — or a great place to escape to with a good book. Investing in flexible furniture for seating and sleeping can help an outbuilding accommodate changing needs.