Choosing the Right Cladding: Timber, Reclaimed, or Composite for Modern Garden Rooms

Designing with Materials That Matter

When designing a modern garden room, the material you choose for the exterior isn’t just a finishing touch, it’s a defining design decision. Cladding shapes the building’s character, influences its durability, and determines how naturally it settles into the landscape. At Into The Garden Room, we work with timber, reclaimed wood, and composite cladding, each offering distinct aesthetic qualities, performance benefits, and levels of sustainability.
Whether you’re drawn to the warmth and movement of natural timber, the story and texture embedded in reclaimed materials, or the long-lasting resilience of composites, the right choice will depend on your environment, your lifestyle, and how you want your garden room to look and feel. This guide explores each option in depth so you can make a confident and well-informed decision that ensures your space is timeless, tactile, and beautifully suited to its surroundings.

“Choosing the right cladding for your garden room isn’t just about aesthetics, it’s about creating a space that harmonises with its surroundings and stands the test of time. At Into The Garden Room, we design and build with timber, reclaimed, and composite cladding, each offering unique benefits. The right choice depends on how you want your space to look and feel, is purpose and how it fits naturally into its surroundings”.
– Paul Ransom – Co-Founder at Into The Garden Room

1. The Natural Beauty of Timber

Timber remains one of our most loved materials. Its warmth, movement, and grain create a tactile connection between the architecture and the garden.
We use sustainably sourced timber such as cedar, larch, and thermowood, chosen for their tone and strength. Over time, timber naturally fades and silvers, helping a garden room blend beautifully into its setting.

Many clients and designers love this soft, aged finish that Timber holds as it gives character and a sense that the structure has always been part of the landscape.
For those who prefer to retain the wood’s rich colour, a UV-protective oil helps preserve the tone and prevent bleaching in sunny spots.

2. Reclaimed Timber: Character with a Conscience

For something truly distinctive, we also work with reclaimed wood, ethically sourced from trusted sustainable suppliers across Eastern Europe. These reclaimed timbers are carefully recovered from old barns, agricultural buildings, and rural structures, ensuring that beautifully aged material is preserved rather than lost. Each board carries its own subtle imperfections, weathered tones, and grain patterns shaped by decades of use, qualities that can’t be replicated by new wood and instantly give a garden room a sense of depth and authenticity.

We restore and prepare each piece to modern high standards before using it to craft exclusive garden rooms with an instantly settled, characterful appearance.
The result is not only a sustainable choice but one full of warmth and authenticity. Each board tells a story, giving your garden room a timeless, lived-in feel that feels rooted in place.

3. The Strength of Composite Cladding

Composite cladding offers a modern, low-maintenance alternative to traditional timber. Manufactured using moulds taken from real wood, these boards replicate the depth, grain, and warmth of natural timber with impressive accuracy, giving you the look and feel of wood without the ongoing upkeep.

Unlike natural boards, composite cladding won’t warp, split, or fade over time, and it doesn’t require yearly treatment or sanding to stay looking its best.

This makes it an ideal choice for high-exposure areas, busy households, or clients who want the beauty of timber with long-term durability and minimal intervention. Its colour consistency and structural stability mean your garden room maintains a refined, modern appearance through every season. Made from recycled materials and engineered for strength, composite cladding is both sustainable and built to last, a reliable, contemporary option that balances performance with timeless design.

4. Blending Materials for Balance

The most successful garden rooms often combine materials for depth, contrast, and a more architectural feel. Thoughtfully pairing natural timber with composite decking, stone bases, or metal accents creates a layered composition that feels both grounded and refined.

Each material plays its part: the organic variation and warmth of wood balanced by the clean precision and durability of engineered finishes.

This interplay of tones and textures not only enhances the visual appeal but also improves long-term performance, ensuring the building feels cohesive and considered from every angle. It’s an approach that defines our work at Into The Garden Room – calm, timeless, and beautifully detailed, with every material chosen to enrich both the structure and its relationship with the surrounding landscape.

Our Experience

We’ve designed and built with both timber and composite cladding across dozens of bespoke projects, and our belief is simple:

There’s no single right choice, only the right choice for you.

• Choose natural timber for warmth, life, and authenticity.
• Choose reclaimed timber for history, sustainability, and character.
• Choose composite for performance, consistency, and ease.

Whichever you choose, you’ll get a timeless, tactile finish designed to live beautifully with your landscape.

We Believe in the Collective

At Into The Garden Room, we believe great design should be experienced, not just admired in photos.

That’s why our showroom is proudly part of The Glasshouse Collective, a destination that brings together 26 of the UK’s leading outdoor and lifestyle brands.

Located in Chobham, Surrey, it’s the perfect place to explore materials firsthand, from reclaimed timbers to high-performance composites. You can feel the textures, see the tones in natural light, and discover what feels right for your home and garden.

There’s no better way to understand design than to experience it in person.

Ready to bring your garden room vision to life?

Call us on 020 8088 3572 or use the Quick form to send us a message. We’ll respond promptly with a personalised quote tailored to your project. Your perfect garden room is just a conversation away!