A sedum roof in autumn… What could be prettier?

Our clients in Carsharlton, south London, chose a green sedum roof as the crowning glory for their new family room, to provide not only them, but also their neighbours, with a gorgeous view year round. A fabulous alternative to a standard flat roof when there are many overlooking bedroom windows. Read more about green roofs here.

But let’s start from the beginning.

What did the client want?

The brief was simple. They needed a space outside of the main family home where they could socialise, have cosy movie nights, play ping pong, and (very importantly), in due course they would need a space for their growing kids to have a ‘teenage room’. Out of sight, out of mind.

The original design that we worked on included a larger footprint and complicated glazing configurations which ultimately worked out to be too costly. Our experienced sales guy Chris then worked with the clients to make some clever tweaks to bring the project into budget. In this case the clever tweaks were minor but made a big impact on cost. A second set of bifold doors were replaced with a smart glass screen on one elevation, and the footprint reduced ever so slightly (which actually fitted better within the existing garden design).

Planning permission, building regs and the family room

The final internal measurement for this building stands at 39.58sqm, which is worth writing about as many of our prospective clients believe the largest possible internal square footage is limited to 30sqm. It is correct that garden structures with an internal measurement larger than 30sqm require building regs, but this is nowhere near as complicated or worrying as you might think. In fact, Vivid Green work to a building regs standard anyway, so it’s really just a case of dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s.

In the case of this particular build, planning permission was also required as the external height was to be 2.85m. No problems occurred during the planning process and we were able to proceed as normal. As a full turnkey service, Vivid Green are experienced at sorting this whole process for you from start to finish.

Find out more about planning permission here.

Mature trees and garden room foundations

The vast majority of our garden room projects begin with ‘ground screw’ foundations. However in this case the client had a range of gorgeous established trees which we needed to work around. Where screw foundations go as deep as 1160mm (and a minimum of 825mm), which in this case would be too deep, our other smart solution is to use a ‘swift plinth foundation system’ which consists of insetting 100mm flat concrete blocks into the ground, which have a steel small steel plinth protruding from them on which we then build. Vivid Green will always take surroundings into consideration and suggest the least intrusive solution possible.

Fixtures and fittings

A hard wearing laminate was chosen for the flooring, along with space and power saving LED down-lights and simple chrome electrical sockets and switches. More about flooring options here.

A climate control unit was fitted, which also meant that we did not include any separate opening windows – as these can affect the effectiveness of the heating and cooling functions.

A separate external storage solution was included to provide space for garden furniture, ping pong tables and other bits and pieces. It’s easy to get carried away with the interior of a building and forget the practicalities – this is a great half way solution. In fact, the external storage solution is also accessible through an internal door – making it super simple to stash extra furniture in a stitch.

Smart technology

An app controlled alarm system was included in this family room build. Wherever in the world our client is, they can receive alerts if the alarms are set off. Take that for piece of mind! More about smart tech here.

A traditional feel

The technology may feel exciting and new, but ultimately this family room had to fit into the existing home and garden landscape. Our client decided very early on that a horizontal Western Red Cedar cladding would provide a more traditional feel to the building than vertical.

For a free site survey, or just a chat about your idea contact us here.