The garden studio home office project with Ronseal

The next project in my new home, after my toddler’s bedroom, is the garden studio/home office. Not only do I blog, but I’m also a digital communications professional for a charity and I work from home regularly. So having my own quiet space away from the house was a must! If you’ve ever worked from home you know how distracting it is to be sat at the kitchen table and looking at the pile of laundry or 101 other things that need doing in the house! Just stepping out the door – even if it is the garden door and not the front door, puts you in the ‘work’ mindset and for me it’s really important!A few weeks ago Ronseal sent me an awesome box of stuff to spruce up my outdoor space and today was the first dry day that I could get out and get started on it! YAY! Here’s a little sneak-peak of the home office before (and inside!) as well as what arrived in the ‘ultimate  garden studio’ box from Ronseal.

Today we finally had a dry-spell and even though the woodwork should have had a bit more time to dry-out – I just couldn’t wait much longer! So while my fiance rebuilt the step to the home office and replaced a few rotten decking boards, the little one and I cracked on with the painting! Although I did also spend a couple of hours cutting back all the plants. The garden was quite overgrown from all of this sun and rain we’ve had and it was making painting difficult…The original plan was to paint the whole exterior wall of the home office in this lovely Ronseal Willow, but it turns out we’re in a conservation area… But this range of garden paint is so versatile that I quickly adapted the scheme to paint the woodwork instead. It’s a paint that’s designed to bring colour into the garden and you can paint brick, stone, terracotta, wood – pretty much anything in your garden! My little birdhouse even got the Ronseal treatment…For such a small outdoor area such as this, a good trick to make it seem larger is to keep to a simple colour scheme. By painting the door and window of the home office the same colour as the borders – it carries your eye along the garden. The home office now feels part of the garden too rather than just a building attached to the terrace. I’m planning on putting some outdoor cushions on this newly painted area below to make a cosy outdoor seating area – perfect for sitting with a cuppa and a good book! Just need a BBQ now and perhaps a cantilever parasol for some shade – they are much better for a small outdoor space then a traditional parasol!And here you have it! BritishStyleUK’s new HQ is officially open! I can’t believe what an improvement a tin of paint and a day’s work can do – I’m now really looking forward to climbing those steep garden steps to my little garden studio to do some work. I just have to tackle the interior now…

Didn’t he do a great job on that step too? I couldn’t resist using the cute stencils that Ronseal provided on the door to my home office ; )I spotted this Ronseal garden paint display in my local hardware store – they’ve a great selection of colours and I’m quite tempted to paint my terracotta pots in purple berry to dot around the terrace and add a little more colour!

What do you think of my little garden? Would you have done anything differently? Let me know in the comment box below – or tweet me @BritishStyleUK

Natalia xo