A backyard office that helped sell a home

A workspace worth escaping to

Working from home is one thing. Working from home well is another.

Joy wanted somewhere genuinely separate from the main house – a space where she could close the door on the distractions of daily life and actually get things done. Or, when the day was over, simply sit quietly and breathe.

Her Melwood Verandah 18 delivered exactly that. At 3.2m x 5.4m with a 1.3m deep verandah at the front, it’s a building that has real presence without dominating the backyard.

Internally, it’s generous enough to accommodate a proper desk setup, comfortable seating, storage cabinetry and an air conditioner, while outside, the full-width verandah connects the interior with the gardens around it.

Built for Canberra’s climate

Duffy sits in the foothills of the Tuggeranong Valley – and anyone who has spent a winter in Canberra knows that a draughty garden room is no garden room at all. Joy upgraded her windows and doors to double glazing, a decision that makes the studio genuinely comfortable year-round rather than a fair-weather-only retreat.

The building features board and batten cladding, stained to a classic finish that sits naturally in the surrounding garden, contrasted by crisp white aluminium window frames. Colorbond® roofing in “Pale Eucalypt” completes a palette that feels connected to its leafy ACT setting. Timber-framed full glass double doors have been stained to blend seamlessly as one with the cladding and, together with three large sliding windows, bring the garden – and light – inside.

Clean, crisp and work-ready

The interior is the kind of welcoming space that makes you want to go to work.

The smooth gyprocked walls and high-pitched ceiling have been painted a crisp white to create a clean, versatile backdrop for the splashes of colour that have been injected through the decor.

Joy stained the plywood flooring to create a finish that gives the look of an engineered timber floor at a fraction of the cost and effort.

Comfortable seating, a desk for working, storage cabinetry and an air conditioner combine to make the studio a genuinely usable space in every season.

A process that delivered from start to finish

Joy knew what she wanted from the outset, and when comparing us to other suppliers, she tells us we “stood out, especially with a good, clear website and excellent gallery of photos”.

She valued the fixed price, clear options, the ability to customise the building to her needs and the good quality materials and workmanship, which spoke for itself.

“Excellent delivery and installation process… Happy with the whole process,” she tells us.

And asked whether her experience with Greenspan had met her expectations, she was equally direct, telling us that they were, in fact, exceeded.

“Absolutely couldn’t have been more helpful and courteous,” she confirms.

This is our aim with every building, every time.

An edge on the property market

It was 2015 when Joy added her Melwood office to her Duffy backyard. And it was four years later, when she moved on… and she got a pleasant surprise when it was time to sell.

“The studio was one of the highlights for those inspecting the property.”

By creating versatile and very usable extra space in a secluded corner of her garden, Joy added something that buyers responded to instinctively. Not just square metres but the sense that this home had something others didn’t.

The result was a property that sold itself, and a great outcome at auction.

Whether Joy’s Melwood continued to be used as a home office or something else, we don’t know. But with a space this adaptable, the new owners might be using it for almost anything.

And it doesn’t matter. Joy built this studio for herself. And the market appreciated it.

All measurements are approximate.