Wednesday, August 7, 2013

From a Shed to a Schoolhouse We Go......hopefully

I introduce you to our backyard shed.  Yep, it's pretty bad.  (as I hang my head in shame...)  

Side "no. 1"

Our house was built in the 1930s.  This building must have been used as a garage.  We're not sure whether it is the same age as the house or not.  Either way, it is still pretty old.  At some point, a previous owner finished out the interior and put in a bathroom.  It was dark and dingy and hadn't been used for anything other than a storage space in a long time.  Shortly after my husband and I got married, we decided to rip out the dark, stained paneling and replace it with a brighter bead board paneling.  As we pulled off the paneling, we found 'old' termite damage.  Old meaning they were no longer active because we did not find any trace of them.  Gotta love that, right!  For anyone that has never dealt with termites, they eat wood.  A lot of wood in a fairly small amount of time.  As they eat the wood, they leave behind a dirt type substance.  It was gross with a capital G!  It needed some major TLC.  Then life happened,  we had babies and we never went any further with the renovation.  It became a catch all for anything and everything from tools to baby monitors to fishing poles.  Storage was not exactly what we had envisioned the space being used for.  

Side "no. 2"

It's got potential though, 320 sq feet and 1 bathroom worth of potential!!  Oh yeah!!  Our house is small so we will take what we can get when it comes to extra square footage.  We plan to use the space as a homeschool room/guest room and a workspace for my husband and myself.  We were gonna call it "The Shed to Cottage Makeover" but then my husband called it "The Schoolhouse" and it has kind of stuck.    

Do you see in the above pictures how bad the wood is around the bottom of the building??  It is like that all the way around.  Side 1 is the worst though!  The siding is traditional board and batten with 1" x 12" boards all the way around with 3" battens over the joints.  Some boards are completely bad while others are bad only toward the bottom.  Most of the battens are in rough shape as well.    

Side "no. 3


Side "no. 4"
Obviously, we need to get the exterior shaped up before we can start on the interior.  Replacing every board and batten will not be very cost effective as one 1" x 12"-8 ft long board costs $11.29 at our local McCoy's Building Supply.  The price is even higher at the "big box" hardware stores.  Several of the boards are longer than 8 ft which means a higher price there too.  

We have tossed around several ideas.  One is HardiePanel siding with HardieTrim for the same board and batten look.  We like the board and batten style but this option still wasn't cost effective since we would basically be re-siding the entire shed.  We are hoping to save as much material already on the shed as we can.  We put our thinking caps on.  Together we decided to join 2 styles together, Board and Batten on the top half of the shed and Lap Siding on the bottom.  


We will cut off the bottom half of the boards and install HardiePlank Lap Siding that will match the look of the siding on our house.  This way we can save the boards that are still in good shape.  We will replace the boards that are bad at the top, replace all the battens with HardieTrim battens, which will hold up better in our climate, and repaint the whole thing.  Here is the best sample I could come up with of our vision.  

Shed Possibility

In the sample above, I added a small window next to the door and replaced the door with one that has a window.  My husband's work space will be where the small window is placed.  This window will give him more natural light there and also lets us look into our back yard so we can keep an eye on our little ones.  I also show the window on side "no. 2" a little larger.  I am hoping to convince my husband to switch the windows from side "no. 3" to side "no.2" and vice versa.  I'll explain this move a little later when I show you some interior pictures.  

Over the summer, we started putting our plan into action so I'll be back with an update soon!  Our goal completion date is September 3rd.

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