A garden sitting and dining room in Caterham by Crusoe Garden Rooms
A 7m x 3m garden room in Caterham, Surrey, based on the Sanctuary design by Crusoe Garden Rooms, with a comfortable seating area at one end and a dining table for the whole family at the other.
Plenty of garden rooms are built as somewhere to get away from the house. This one, in Caterham, Surrey, has become part of it. The family eat their evening meals out here, watch TV here and have family and friends round, and they’ve used it every day since it was finished.
It’s a 7m x 3m garden room by Crusoe Garden Rooms, based on their Sanctuary design and completed in March 2026. The length gives it room for two distinct spaces, a sitting area at one end and a large dining table at the other, both with views of the garden.
At a glance
- Size: 7m x 3m, based on the Crusoe Garden Rooms Sanctuary, with a seating area and a dining area.
- Built for: a second sitting room and the family’s everyday dining room.
- Construction: fully insulated timber frame on ground screws, built on site in two weeks.
- Finishes: Western Red Cedar cladding and anthracite grey uPVC doors and windows outside; plastered walls and laminate flooring inside.
- Company: Crusoe Garden Rooms, Nottingham, working throughout the UK, with the electrical connection to the house included.
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The Sanctuary, tailored to the garden
The Sanctuary is one of the Crusoe Garden Rooms designs, but it isn’t a fixed product. Each building is constructed from scratch on the client’s plot by the Crusoe Garden Rooms team, so the size, the layout of the doors and windows and the finishes can all be adjusted to suit the garden and how the room will be used.
Here, the back wall faces the boundary and isn’t on show, so it’s clad in exterior hardwood ply painted anthracite grey rather than cedar. Crusoe Garden Rooms call this approach Fusion, and it keeps the cedar for the sides people actually see. The building stands on ground screws, which need no excavation, so there was no spoil to clear from the garden.
Western Red Cedar and anthracite grey
Western Red Cedar is the standard cladding on every Crusoe Garden Rooms building, fixed vertically here. Its warm colour sits well against the anthracite grey doors and windows, and it’s a durable, low-maintenance timber, so the building has a long life ahead of it with little upkeep.
The roof carries on past the front wall to form a shallow canopy. Downlights are set into its cedar underside, with a wall light either side of the doors, so the building and the path are lit after dark.
Sliding doors onto the garden
The garden side is built around a four-pane sliding door set, with the middle two panes sliding open. A tall fixed window stands either side of it, and a third window on the end wall opens for fresh air, so daylight reaches both ends of the room.
A timber step leads down from the doors to a stepping-stone path across gravel. The owners finished the path after the build, and in their words it completes it.
A neutral backdrop to style
Inside, the walls and ceiling are plastered and painted, and the floor is laminate in a light oak finish. Those neutral finishes leave the owners free to furnish the room to their own taste, and they’ve done just that.
At one end is a comfortable seating area, arranged around a media table and a wall-mounted TV, with slatted panelling on the wall behind.
At the other end, a large dining table seats the family, looking out through the sliding doors to the lawn and a mature tree. Fully insulated and with a wall-mounted heater, the room is comfortable to use through the year.
The heart of the home
When the build was handed over, the owners hadn’t yet furnished it, but they were looking forward to using it for dining and relaxation. That’s how it has turned out. “We use our garden room every night for dinner and watching TV,” they told Trevor, adding that their daughter has had several sleepovers out here and they’ve entertained quite a bit.
Ready to use as the team leave site
The build took two weeks, carried out by Trevor, Freddie and Ellis from Crusoe Garden Rooms. The full electrics package is included, along with the certified connection back to the house, so the room was ready to use as soon as the team left site. The owners singled out the workmanship and the communication along the way.
We’ve also featured eight more Crusoe Garden Rooms projects from across the UK, from home gyms and creative studios to a lakeside entertaining space, and many of them are based on the Sanctuary range.
Learn more about Crusoe Garden Rooms
Crusoe Garden Rooms are a family-run team based in Nottingham, building bespoke garden rooms on site throughout the UK. To explore the Sanctuary and their other designs, or to discuss your own project, visit www.crusoegardenrooms.co.uk, call 07977 035 254, or email info@crusoegardenrooms.co.uk.
