8 Garden Room Business Ideas with Low Overhead Costs

If you’ve entered 2023 eager to become your own boss and set up a business from your garden room, you’re in good company. According to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), the UK is home to 3.2 million sole traders, many of who work from home. At some point, they’ve had the same thought as you– how can you launch a business with low overhead costs?

If you’re planning on setting up as a sole trader or Limited company, here are a few low-risk, low-investment garden room business ideas for you to consider.

1. Personal Trainer

If you have a passion for health and fitness and are a qualified personal trainer, you could start your own personal training business from your garden room. Not only will you enjoy helping your clients achieve their fitness goals, you’ll also have a dedicated space to keep yourself in good shape. Plus, you won’t have to pay a commercial gym an ongoing fee to use their equipment.

As a PT, you’ll have higher start-up costs than some of the other garden room business ideas listed below, as you’ll have to purchase some equipment. You needn’t buy everything at once, though. To start, you could purchase one piece of cardio equipment, some weights, exercise bands, a step and floor mats. Then, you can add to your equipment as you understand your clients’ needs.

2. Bookkeeper

If you’re an experienced bookkeeper, you’ll already have mastered the fundamental part of running a business – keeping an eye on your finances.

Every company needs to keep accurate financial records, and many businesses outsource this function rather than appoint someone internally. A relatively small investment into the right software, a secure computer and a reliable internet connection to your garden room is all you’ll need to get started. Simply attending a few networking events, promoting your services on LinkedIn and reaching out to neighbouring businesses should generate a few strong leads to start generating an income.

The Belle garden room, pictured below in ‘Island Breeze’ is a great garden office to support clients from.

3. Etsy Creator

If you’re creative and have some unique handmade items that you know will sell well, Etsy and NotOnTheHighStreet offer exposure to vast numbers of customers. Although both take a healthy margin, you forgo the expense of having to set up and promote your own website.

By making your creations from your garden room, you won’t have the same overheads as if you rented a studio, either. You can literally create in batches or to order and simply close the door at the end of the day.

Check out this incredible creative space nestled within the Ultra garden room below. The owner is a fabric and clothes designer who loves their distraction-free garden studio.

4. Virtual Assistant

The demand for virtual assistants (VAs) is high. Since the pandemic, businesses have become far more comfortable with outsourcing. After all, virtual services can save companies quite a lot of money, as hiring a permanent employee is often more expensive. Plus, as a contracted VA, your services can be dialled up or down, depending on demand. So, if you’re a strong organiser, have a great working knowledge of MS Office and can extend your skills to event planning and diary management, working as a VA from your garden room is a great business idea.

5. Marketing Consultant

Most marketers will become freelance consultants at some point in their careers. If you’re a copywriter, digital marketing professional, SEO specialist, website developer, event planner or graphic designer, your main business expenses will be software and equipment costs. Beyond that, you’ll be contracting your time and expertise, and so your business overheads should be fairly low.

A purpose-built garden office is a great option compared to renting an office space, which can set you back a good couple of hundred pounds each month. Plus, you could zone your garden room so that you have somewhere to meet clients and collaborate with other freelancers.

To get started, you will need a good website (a given in marketing), a strong social media presence, and example projects you can showcase to prospective clients.

If you have enough space, as the owners of this Suffolk Barn garden room have, you could share your garden office with other family members or fellow creatives.

6. Beauty Therapist

There are quite a few initial overheads with a beauty or wellbeing business. You’ll have your equipment and furniture to purchase as well as a few essential products. Once you have purchased these though, and have gradually built up your client base, a garden room beauty business is relatively low-cost to run as apart from the products you use, clients are essentially ‘buying’ your time and expertise.

7. Counsellor / Life Coach

If you’re considering practising as an independent counsellor or life coach, you’ll already know that renting a private consultation suite is costly and tricky to find. You’ll need somewhere that’s quiet, calming, and easily accessible, which can be hard to come by. A garden room offers all these things and more. When clients come to see you, they’ll have complete privacy and a safe space to share their thoughts.

Aside from the initial and ongoing qualification costs, counselling carries very few overheads.  Your biggest initial outlay (aside from your garden room) will be your website and other marketing costs to promote your business.

8. Music Tutor

Much like life coaching, working as a music tutor from your garden room can be a great little business. Costs are usually quite low as students typically bring their musical instruments to lessons.

A garden room is a better option than tutoring from inside your home (or theirs) as it provides an uninterrupted space to perform. With SMART® garden rooms, you can choose a noise-reduction pack, which uses Rockwool sound-reducing insulation, a sound-reducing membrane and acoustic glass.

We love how this musical family uses their Belle music studio (below) for everyday use and for private tutoring.

Food for Thought

There are quite literally hundreds of different types of companies that make suitable home businesses. The important thing to think about when exploring garden room business ideas is to choose something that you’re passionate about.

Once you’ve settled on a business idea, you can start creating your garden room using the SMART® Configurator. Watch your design come to life as you play around with different sizes, window and door positioning, and exterior and interior finishes. Then, when you’re ready, you can view precisely what your garden room business will look like through the lens of your mobile phone or tablet using the SMART® AR Visualiser App. It really is that simple!