Looking for stylish outdoor cladding for garden projects? Bring your garden design together with timber cladding. Choosing stylish cladding for outside areas such as home offices, cabins, and even on smaller items such as bin stores and timber sheds is increasing in popularity.
Timber cladding offers the dual benefit of a stunning finish, combined with having insulating properties. Put simply, insulating never looked so good. Whether you are considering a garden makeover, or want to restyle the exterior of your home, choosing timber cladding provides a long-lasting finish that’s made to turn heads.
Featheredge vs Shiplap cladding what’s the difference?
Featheredge cladding offers a traditional look which been used for centuries in cladding homes and outbuildings. Put simply it’s a sawn board which is cut on the diagonal to achieve a tapered effect that is then overlapped when fitted. Treatment is applied after the timber is cut to ensure full penetration across all surfaces.
Shiplap cladding consists of wooden panels that interlock, allowing water to run off easily. This style of cladding was originally used to waterproof ships (hence the name). It can provide a more finished look as boards overlap, giving a clean, linear look.
Using cladding for garden buildings
Want to bring some style to your garden room, shed or home office? Offering a stylish Nordic look, while also bringing the benefits of great insulation and weatherproofing, cladding is a great way to bring together your garden design.
While many pre-made sheds are already clad on arrival, if you choose to create your own structure, you can be more selective in the cladding style and finish, opting to match it with other wood within your garden in terms of colour and style.
You can add drama too. While opting for traditional treated timber evokes a country garden feel, you can also mix it up with colour - whether through painting, treatment or initial product. White weatherboard has a cottage vibe, and evokes a Scandi-feel that you see across many social media channels. Black weatherboard is increasingly in demand thanks to its contemporary look and has expanded from its traditional use on stables and barns into usage on garages and houses. Composite cladding is the alternative to timber cladding, available in a wider range of pre-made colours and not requiring preservative treatment, providing you with longevity as well as allowing you to get creative. Fibre cement weatherboard as stocked at Alsford, is a further alternative to timber weatherboard, and can be installed vertically or horizontally, without preservative treatment.
An alternative to brick for your outdoor projects
Opting for timber cladding provides both an effective and affordable alternative for a range of outdoor projects.
From building a great looking bin store or coal shed, to creating a home office that blends seamlessly in with the surrounding garden, timber cladding makes for the perfect material for outdoor garden projects.
Opting to keep it simple with natural looking timber, allows buildings and structures to blend with their natural surroundings, while a lick of paint or a coloured cladding allows you to stamp your own personality on your exterior structures.
Wood cladding your home
From the traditional house finish through the evolution of modern brick homes, it’s become a design trend to add exterior cladding to houses. Whether you want to create a real feature point on your exterior, or simply want to hide an old pebbledash wall, timber cladding is an ideal solution.
Cladding the exterior of your home can bring with it a wealth of benefits. It can help to enhance your home’s appearance while simultaneously bringing insulating properties – something which is becoming increasingly important as our energy bills rise. While you might opt for full cladding of the exterior of your home, you can get smart with the design, and choose to add timber cladding as a feature to a specific area such as by an individual room.
Bear in mind that in some cases completely changing the exterior of your home may require planning permission, so always speak to your local authority before embarking on this type of project.
Insulating properties of timber cladding
Timber is a natural insulation material for both heat and sound.
The organic cell structure of timber creates tiny air pockets inside the wood which acts as a barrier for heat and cold. This means that both hardwood and softwood timber have useful insulation properties, especially when compared to other building materials. Indeed timber is better at retaining heat than concrete, steel and aluminium making it an ideal material for keeping your outside space warm.
As timber cladding also reduces sound travel, it’s become increasingly popular for garden offices, as the outside noise is less likely to travel in and disturb your work day.
How to maintain your cladding
As outbuildings are exposed to all types of weather, it’s vital that you ensure that you protect the wood and maintain it at regular intervals.
When initially building your shed or outdoor building, use a treatment like Ronseal Total Wood Preserver which is designed to provide long lasting protection against woodworm, wood rot and decay. The product can be used both on new cladding, and also to maintain the area on an annual basis.
Whether you wish to use cladding to build a new shed, or simply want to create a bin store that blends with your existing decking and fencing, cladding is the obvious choice for your garden projects. Discover the wide choice of cladding types here at Alsford Timber.