The weather we’ve been fortunate enough to experience recently has definitely made lockdown more pleasant. Working from home isn’t so bad if it’s in the sunshine with a cool beverage accompanied by birdsong. With this in mind, it’s only natural that you might be thinking about using your new home to really exploit the outdoors.
There are a number of ways to do this. You can combine a new passion for cooking with one for the garden – think a garden kitchen or, if you’re a fan of all things Italian, a pizza oven. There are also all kinds of outbuildings to consider. If you’ve got a hobby that requires concentration, putting a studio in your garden will be much more peaceful than if it was in the main house.
Practical Considerations
A side effect of working from home is that your electricity bills will be higher than usual. If your whole family is working from home, and there are now four laptops charging every day, the increase could be significant. So, self building an energy-efficient home should offset the higher electricity requirements with a much lower heating consumption. And there are other things you can do, as well. Strategically place office and working from home areas to catch the most sun, so natural light will replace the need for artificial for as long as possible.
Designing a house post-Covid is the new type of futureproofing, and there are loads of ways you can use space in your new self build to accommodate the way you want to live.