There are a few considerations about the space you plan to use that I would like for you to consider. If you are already very confident in the placement of your garden room, you can skip to the next section.

Electricity

Perhaps most obviously, the room must have electrical outlets in order to plug in the lights. Optimally, it will have a ceiling fan that you can leave running on low, drawing upwards, with a light fixture beneath it. LED lights do not require a lot of power, and your home wiring is very likely adequate.

If you were using exclusively 9W LED lamps, you could use 11 of them for the power an old fashioned 100W incandescent bulb would have required. That is why something that looks like an old advertisement for a fire hazard is not the problem that it might appear to be.

Your lights will be plugged into one or more mechanical timers. My garden room is currently using two. They are both running on the same schedule. I do this to spread the electrical load and so the wiring is less difficult.

It is important to remember that this a situation with both water and electricity, though it’s nothing like a bathroom. Still it is worthwhile to keep your wiring up off the floor. In my case, it is mostly attached to the ceiling. There is more detail on the next page.

Flooring

Another primary consideration is the floor. No matter what you try to do, it will occasionally get a little wet. It will get soil on it and plant parts. You will need to be able to see it well enough to tell if you suddenly have a stream of ants coming in from outdoors. Tile, or another solid waterproof surface is almost a requirement. Some people do this in carpeted rooms, but personally, I would never even consider that. There are often moments in the gardening process, where it is easier to do a little cleaning than it is to never drop any soil or water on the floor.

Windows

Windows are a lesser consideration. You don’t really need one when growing with lights. I am using my second garden room. In the first, the window got significant light and I used it for hours a day on my plants. However the light reaching my current room through the window is not very significant and I don’t use it at all. I found it was better to leave my plants with the consistent lighting in that room than it was to bother with it.

If you have a window with good light, I will tell you about preparing a mylar backed shade in the next section. You can open this during the time of day when the window is productive, and close, to get more out of your lights, when it is not.

You can use a light meter app on your smart phone to determine if you have more light with or without the reflective shade when your lights are running.

Doors

You may or may not want a door on the garden room, and you may or may not want for it to lock.

Are there very small children or pets? You might need a door to keep them out of the room.

If you follow my instructions this area will be lined with mylar in order to preserve light in the room. It might look kind of odd to people who come in your home. A door would conceal that, as well as holding up the mylar on the inside.

Size

A final consideration is the room size. My garden room is 60 sq. ft. This is large enough to produce a fair amount of food but not all the produce I eat. I discuss plants that do well under these circumstances later, but as a general rule, it’s more beneficial to grow things that you eat raw or are more expensive than other things in the limited space you likely have in the garden room.