“Wouldn't stay again - My husband and I just returned from a week long stay at the garden studio, unfortunately it did not meet up to our expectations.”
Firstly, the "bumpy farm track" is a nightmare, even in a car which does not have low suspension this was very tricky to drive along and caused worry about the state of our car by the end of the week, the description does not quite to justice to how bad the surface of this track is. On arrival we parked the car up on the grassed area next to the studio, not the most pleasant welcome to find several lots of dog mess either side of the car which had to be avoided as we unpacked and indeed throughout the week - I understand the owners have a (very sweet) dog and this is a pet friendly cottage but you would think this could be checked before guests arrive. We collected the keys from Emma who showed us to the studio and gave a warm welcome.
The attention to detail on cleanliness of the studio was lacking, there was thick dust and cobwebs around the doors, windows, along the ceiling, behind the headboard of the bed and around the edges of the bathroom where there was also dog hair, someone's old used soap had been left on the soap dish in the shower. The extractor fan in the bathroom didn't look like it had been cleaned in a very long time and there was a general damp / musty smell throughout the studio. The overall finish on the studio could use work - a fresh lick of white paint would go along way to brightening it up.
In terms of facilities the studio has a well equipped kitchen which contained everything we needed to eat in several nights during our stay and the washer / dryer was useful. The bed is very comfortable and the bedroom is wonderfully dark once the sun sets so we did sleep well throughout. There is a TV with free view which we found sufficient and there are games, books, dvds etc. available for guests entertainment. We did have issues with the bathroom, the shower does not have a lot of power to it and although there is a lovely large bath, unfortunately the hot water tank doesn't hold enough water to be able to more than half fill it so you cant really have a proper bath. It wasn't that warm during our stay so we needed to have a few fires, the starter kit for the fire doesn't include kindling or firelighters so we had to go and get some, there are also no tools for the fire (poker, heat proof glove etc.) which made using it harder than it needed to be.
Being out in the sticks, there are times of peace at the studio where all you can hear is bird song and we did enjoy sitting in the living area watching the birds in the evenings, because of being raised up it feels a little like you are in a tree house which is quite nice to be at the tree canopy level and see the birds close up.
Our biggest issue overall with our stay at the garden studio was the generator being used on the diary farm next door. The description indicates this can be heard on occasion if you are outside of the property, based on this and the fact it hadn't come up in previous reviews we assumed this to be the case and that it would not be an issue. We were incorrect, the generator is used twice a day for approx. 2 hour stints and can very much be heard throughout the property even with all doors closed. The times seemed to vary so we struggled to plan our day to avoid it entirely, on two occasions it was on until 9pm at night and the last night was gone 10pm before it went off . It is very loud & reverberating which made watching TV or concentrating on anything else difficult and had quite a big impact on our stay.
There were some nice points about the garden studio but overall it did not represent good value for money or provide the relaxing & tranquil hide away we were hoping for.