Converting A Shed To A Tiny House – Part 1

 
That is right.  I am converting a shed to a house!
I am moving my FAMILY OF 5 into a shed… to live in.  In the central Texas country.  On raw land.  No water or electric yet.  In a town that has the same population of our church!!
Am I nuts?!?  Do you think I can convert a shed into a house?!
There are reasons why I’m putting my family in a home that gives us 160 sqft of living space.  But… I know that this is the best option for us. And I’m willing to ruffle feathers and swim upstream towards this insane idea.
Top Ten anyone??
 

#1. My wife approves of it!

She is so excited about this idea that she is even telling people!  Which is something that even I am not really doing.  I at least want to get some progress moving before we begin “putting our signs on”.  Maybe I am a stupid redneck?  I doubt it, but I do like this bit…

 

#2. It’s not really a “Shed”.

Now when I say we are converting a shed to a house… I guess I need to let out the suspense a little, and say that we aren’t actually buying a shed from Lowe’s.  Now that is a cool idea and I think we’ll be doing that for our “guest house cottage”.  But not for this first one that we live in full time.
We will be buying is a Derksen portable building.  It is made by Mennonite Craftsmen builders and the walls will be 16in centers.  A lot of the big box stores sell sheds that are on 20-24in centers.  It’ll be a shell of a building that is probably going to be 16×50 with a barn style metal roof, so we can have two lofts for the kiddos.
Here is some images to see what this idea could actually look like!
And then here is a link to the Derksen Portable Building company.
This would put us at 800 sqft not including the lofts.  SEE!  I am not that crazy, am I?  800 sqft is PLENTY of room for 5 people that are used to living in 2000 sqft, fight?  Oh, I meant to say, “RIGHT?”  lol!   I actually had a typo two times in a row with it saying “fight” instead of “right”. Maybe it is foreshadowing!  ha ha.  🙂
 

#3. These Sheds are affordable.

Well when I say affordable, I guess I am referring to the entry price of the shell that will be dropped on our land. I believe that the price of what we will be going with is around $17,000 for them to delivery to our Texas Homestead.

So for roughly $17k we get:

• 4 walls
• barn style roof
• Lofts built (I think, I need to double check this)
• A PLYWOOD FLOOR! Ha ha ha
• Limited number of windows which we may or may not upgrade
• A door, which Kelly 100% is wanting to upgrade to a sliding or French doors.  She wants LOTS OF LIGHT.

 
But that’s it.  When you are converting a shed to a house, any of these Derksen resellers will gladly finish out your Tiny House Shed.

But we are contemplating doing the work for ourselves of:

• Electric (my good friend is a licensed electrician and has offered to help)
• Basic Plumping
• Insulation.  This is a BIG ONE! Please leave your comments on what you know about Spray Foam Insulation.  Does it off gas after its dried?  This would be our top choice if its healthy.  Again, I’m fully aware that I “got my sign on!”

 

We certainly will be saving money by doing the work of:

• framing the bedrooms
• Sheetrock (or tongue and groove siding)
• Flooring
• Custom Kitchen cabinets
• Fixtures and appliances
• Shower and toilet(s)
• And I’m sure I am missing a lot more

 
Now this is not going to be cheap by any means.  The beautiful bride does frugal well…but does NOT do cheap well.  The good thing is it’ll look FANTASTIC once complete!
That wraps it up for Part 1 of Converting a Shed to a Tiny House.  Please comment, share, and subscribe so you don’t miss anything during the journey.  In Part 2 of this 3 part series we will go over the size, homeschooling, and portability of the tiny house shed!  See y’all then.
And be sure to check out our Vlog tour of these sheds converted to a house!  Shed House or Shouse !!!  ha ha.

-Beau