Do you have an idea of the R-value of the insulation you put in? I'm wondering what this will take to heat and cool during the peaks of summer and winter.
dmitriy_ko · 2026-08-25 14:44:19 UTC
R-19. You can see label in the picture.
turtlebits · 2026-08-25 17:41:17 UTC
Those are 2x4 studs, so R13, shoving thicker insulation in doesn't change much.
doodlebugging · 2026-08-26 00:38:23 UTC
True. Depending on how heavily they compressed it to fit between those studs it will likely be less than R13. No matter whether you use fiberglass or rockwool, you should make sure you buy insulation sized to the depth of the cavity it will insulate. Then use an insulation knife to cut in for obstacles within the cavities.
ryandrake · 2026-08-25 14:40:08 UTC
For work-from-home, I can't emphasize enough how much of a game changer it is to have a physically separate building for your work, especially if you have a family with kids and noise and pets and things. Working from a spare bedroom, even one without a bed / outfitted as an office, is just not my thing. Even if your family "knows the rules" and let you work in peace. It subjectively still "feels like you're home". With a separate building, I can do a short walking commute and take those 10 seconds to "get into work mindset." And, once I'm out there, it can be a hermetically sealed, zero-distraction zone.
If you are lucky and fortunate enough to live in an actual house with land, and work (or are thinking about working) remotely, seriously consider investing in an actual separate building for your office.
juancn · 2026-08-25 14:51:54 UTC
Yeah, second that. I made my office separated from the main house and it's incredible.
We bought an old house and did a full remodel and planned for an office and a work kitchen (my wife is a chef) separated from the main house (and each other).
It's been a game changer
darmensdf · 2026-08-26 14:03:02 UTC
Incredible!
greenowl · 2026-08-25 17:15:32 UTC
Stepping back a bit, if you are working remotely that's likely a proxy for an increased likelihood of job loss due to AI.
Why start and invest in a construction project for a building that may not be staffed long term? Perhaps renting a small coworking space in town is the safer financial move. And have your employer pay for it.
stronglikedan · 2026-08-25 17:22:58 UTC
> if you are working remotely that's likely a proxy for an increased likelihood of job loss due to AI.
only as likely as literally every other scenario. the difference is you can continue to use your backyard office for your new job
y-curious · 2026-08-25 17:29:30 UTC
One could argue this will get at least 50% ROI if you’re forced to sell your home. It’s strictly illegal in most places to room someone in one of these, but I’m sure people do it all the time. It won’t go to waste.
amatecha · 2026-08-25 17:37:36 UTC
in the post:
> I had tried coworking spaces but didn’t love the vibe or the idea of spending hours in a phone booth.
copperx · 2026-08-25 18:06:19 UTC
* Goes ahead and builds a $20k phone booth.
Fantastic.
amatecha · 2026-08-27 20:58:51 UTC
Yeah, it does seem pretty excellent! Even if it's a relatively small room (105 square feet or something), if it's right in your back yard with all your own stuff (and no strangers immediately outside the room), that's pretty awesome. No commute, no monthly/annual fees or lease etc... Plus it can be repurposed for other stuff if needed (guest house? kids' play space? etc.)
swiftcoder · 2026-08-26 12:37:34 UTC
> Perhaps renting a small coworking space in town is the safer financial move
The article states that in only 4 years it's already broken even vs renting a coworking space. Plus it is at least a theoretical bump to the property value (vs rent paid to coworking space which would be pure overhead)
greenowl · 2026-08-26 18:20:18 UTC
FWIW, I worked fully remotely (pre COVID) and my employer at the time was willing to fully cover the costs of renting a coworking space.
Though I never specifically asked, I sincerely doubt they would have footed the bill to construct a detached building in my backyard that I could work from instead.
benoau · 2026-08-25 17:36:34 UTC
Yeah the worst thing about working from within your house... bathroom, coffee, anything at all that necessitates going out of the room entails a major context switch for the most inane reasons and conversations.
jryan49 · 2026-08-25 18:29:30 UTC
In this case they'd still have to go inside to go to the bathroom. :/
ryandrake · 2026-08-25 19:00:15 UTC
I've got a bathroom in my out-building office, too, and a small kitchen with a sink, coffee maker, toaster, fridge, and so on. The limit is money to spend and land area to build on :)
skarz · 2026-08-25 19:06:54 UTC
to be honest, having to walk inside to use the bathroom or refill your cup of coffee seems like a nice way to stand up and get the blood flowing again + breathe some fresh air.
rdiddly · 2026-08-25 18:54:57 UTC
I agree with that, but I often wonder whether maintaining a separation for longer periods just leads to a bigger backlog of these topics building up and making it worse when it does happen.
marssaxman · 2026-08-25 17:53:41 UTC
If what you want is an office you can go to which is not in your home, it seems like it would be ever so much simpler to go live near your actual office, which your employer already pays for, than to move far enough away from everything that you can afford to buy a piece of property, build an office on it, and then have to deal with all the extra driving a remote lifestyle implies.
In my opinion it's commuting to the office which sucks, and not working in the office: I had a couple years where I walked in to work every day, and that was basically ideal. (It was, ironically, a job I started while living on the opposite side of the country: I then moved to a place about a mile from the office, quite a pleasant walk through the heart of the city.)
0xffff2 · 2026-08-25 18:17:34 UTC
Everyone has different opinions about this stuff, but I for one found _working_ in the office to absolutely be the worst part. And since Covid, my workplace has torn down old buildings and reduced square footage per employee, so if I went back to the office it would be even worse.
blackguardx · 2026-08-25 18:38:30 UTC
Do you work at Microsoft or is this a broader trend?
JoeBOFH · 2026-08-25 19:39:12 UTC
It’s been a broader trend of businesses downsizing the square footage when they can and when they can’t they start to mandate in office to justify the cost.
0xffff2 · 2026-08-26 17:11:17 UTC
I don't know how broad the trend is, but I am a contractor for the US government. I'm told that agencies are actually required by law to reduce square footage. So when they tore down my old building (which absolutely needed to go), they simply could not as a matter of law build a new building with the same square footage even if they had the budget.
linsomniac · 2026-08-25 18:57:13 UTC
>live near your actual office, which your employer already pays for,
I've been in the game for almost 40 years now, and I'll say I've never had an office paid for by my employer that is as nice as that toughshed. I've never been in a dedicated office with a door, except when working from home.
Edit: ProTip: If you are doing concrete, rent a "Mud Mixer". Me an the kids were able to pour the 8x12x5" (130 bags of 80lbs) in well under a day, probably would have been even less if we had moved the bagged concrete to the pour site before the pour happened rather than as we were pouring.
nkrisc · 2026-08-25 19:10:51 UTC
I would not go out of my way to live near where I work when my employer can fire me on a whim.
If the office was in a place where I could reasonably expect to find other jobs as well, then that could be part of my consideration, but I would never choose to live somewhere based primarily on whatever my current job is.
marssaxman · 2026-08-25 19:24:59 UTC
That's a good point. The office I mentioned was located in downtown Seattle, a city where jobs are plentiful and I have many connections, so moving there was an easy choice.
ghaff · 2026-08-26 20:53:25 UTC
Or where you may choose to work elsewhere on a whim. (Never mind that a partner and/or kids may place constraints.)
bluefirebrand · 2026-08-25 20:32:01 UTC
> In my opinion it's commuting to the office which sucks, and not working in the office
I'm not a fan of commuting either but for me it's definitely the working in an office that sucks
Maybe if it wasn't an open office bullpen style place but I've only worked in places without private or semi private offices, or even cubes
lazyasciiart · 2026-08-25 21:24:14 UTC
My office suuuucks. All the actual machines are in a dedicated space so we have to hot desk and remote in even if we come to the office. There’s not even cubicles, just rows of desks. I would go out of my way NOT to work there.
jen20 · 2026-08-25 23:24:57 UTC
> it seems like it would be ever so much simpler to go live near your actual office
This constrains the companies you can work at to ones with a local office, if you do not want to move house. If you want to live within walking distance of many companies, you could easily be looking at paying millions of dollars for a poor quality house.
There is a happy medium if you like offices (see below): co-working spaces.
> it's commuting to the office which sucks, and not working in the office
Most company offices are fucking horrific - open plan, atrocious coffee, noisy, full of people who won’t stay home when they are sick.
happymellon · 2026-08-26 05:32:53 UTC
> In my opinion it's commuting to the office which sucks, and not working in the office
Nah. Other people are selfish.
Shitty open floor plans, so that other peoples drive bys become distrations
Meeting rooms that are set up to hold only 3 people, because everyone wanted smaller rooms for their 1 on 1s, mean that most meeting rooms are now too small for you to gather your team in. Which leads to people having team meetings at their desks and goes back to point 1.
Crappy equipment. I work at a large enough bank that you will have heard of it, even outside the US. You get a 1080p monitor at your hot desk. After upgrading to a 1440p over a decade ago when those cheap Korean screens came out, and having a 4k for many years now, I struggle to go back to a 1080p. Applications have so much chrome because of the larger monitors.
Hot desks can fuck off too. Come into the office so you can sit with your team. Oh, but not everyone, you guys have to go to 6 rows down.
copperx · 2026-08-25 18:05:03 UTC
It's smarter (and cheaper!) to live by yourself because your entire house is distraction-free.
bombcar · 2026-08-25 21:57:47 UTC
I visited a friend's apartment and he was going on and on about how everyone around him seems to be getting exploding dogs, so I think the key is to live by yourself in a house separated from others.
But down that path lies a cabin innawoods.
copperx · 2026-08-25 23:20:16 UTC
This is correct. There needs to be some outside air in between you and people, not just a wall.
mapontosevenths · 2026-08-26 03:13:43 UTC
A moat would also be nice.
swiftcoder · 2026-08-26 12:34:03 UTC
> exploding dogs
I've heard of bomb disposal dogs, but this is an angle I hadn't previously considered
syspec · 2026-08-26 03:30:59 UTC
Even better, avoid making my friends so you won't receive pesky texts asking you to hangout.
In fact, probably better to just put your desk in the bathroom for maximum efficiency!
organsnyder · 2026-08-25 18:07:01 UTC
We built a new garage with an upstairs ADU when I started working from home in 2018. It is indeed a game-changer, and when we no longer need the space we can use it for a rental, guest house, etc.
I've been WFH since Covid and, when it first happened, my office was in a finished attic that was not well conditioned. I like it warmer so I didn't mind, and the lack of comfort for others meant I enjoyed more solo time.
These days, I may as well not even have a door. I put auto-shutting hinges on it, but that failed as reminder/deterrent long ago.
We've got a 10x20 out back that was supposed to be my workshop, but it's filled with all the things most Americans put in their garages - because we don't have one. I'm seriously considering a deep purge and converting at least 1/2 of to an office; the distractions and context switching are disastrous.
The perfect work-from-home office is a tethered balloon. Change my mind.
johndhi · 2026-08-26 00:07:11 UTC
Hmm. I have a decent shed outside my house and my current office (in the house) is decent but when kids get home it gets a bit harder.
I wonder if I can convert an existing shed...
mettamage · 2026-08-26 05:32:47 UTC
> "get into work mindset."
I have multiple Spotify playlists for this. What's neat is that I also listen to them for fun, but they also allow me to get into a work mindset.
So for me it's more of a mental walk.
8by3 · 2026-08-25 14:43:37 UTC
Nice, I also have an office in my backyard. Although its a ~100 year old brick structure that was originally staff quarters. Had to put a new roof on it, run power, fibre and install AC. Now its my office / data centre (yes I put a rack in a room I sit in...)
The rack warms it in the winter so I don't need any extra cooling, and I run the AC in the summer.
sailfast · 2026-08-25 14:46:36 UTC
Looks like a great setup!
$20K still seems like a lot to get some mosquito bites walking through the yard to work. Lack of plumbing, coffee, etc (some of those are fixable of course) is a bit of a turnoff but perhaps the walk is part of the charm.
I find that with kids mostly in school and knowing the rules the exterior space isn’t a requirement, but I don’t have a ton of meetings these days so YMMV. Mostly this is cope because I don’t have 20K to drop on a cool office! :)
Nice work and thanks for the post!
ryandrake · 2026-08-25 14:59:59 UTC
If you're relatively handy, a lot of what OP paid for can be DIY'ed. I would have never paid a contractor to do all of that. Probably just the electrical. Especially the Tuff Shed structure. Those things are dead simple, marketed at DIYers, and can be finished in a weekend. Insulation, drywall, trim, and flooring is also child's play. OP could have easily cut the project's cost in half if he wanted to.
JamesSwift · 2026-08-25 15:58:46 UTC
Yeah I had the same thoughts about what they chose to DIY vs hire out. Insulation is so simple, and trim can be done at your leisure. But thats also not likely to save much overall since the contractors also know how simple those are.
jawilson2 · 2026-08-25 20:41:05 UTC
You're missing the important part: doing all of this WITH A ONE YEAR OLD CRAWLING AROUND AT HOME. You can get things done, it is just an order of magnitude longer that it would take without kid(s).
kslambert · 2026-08-27 03:12:36 UTC
Author here. 100% this. I bought a fixer upper before my child was born. I gutted our house and did most of the work myself. I saved a lot of money. And I realized something… I don’t actually like home projects. Once my kid was born it exacerbated the issue. I didn’t have time. My wife is a full time caretaker, she was with my kid all week so nights and weekend is my time to lean in. Doing this myself would have strained our whole family. The time just isn’t there, I want to be a present dad, husband. And I want to do things I truly enjoy: making art, playing music, cycling. It’s not a fit for everyone where I’m at in life contracting out work I don’t want to do myself is preferable.
Johnny555 · 2026-08-25 15:14:43 UTC
The Coffee issue is easy to solve, just bring a pitcher of water with you in the morning to pour into the coffee maker - it's what I did when my home office was in a spare room above the garage. The walk from his back yard to the indoor bathroom is probably shorter than the walk he'd have in any office.
swader999 · 2026-08-25 15:23:29 UTC
Its gross but a pee bottle is what I'd do.
rocketpastsix · 2026-08-25 15:35:56 UTC
that feels pretty excessive
swader999 · 2026-08-25 16:57:52 UTC
Not in terms of cost.
onlypassingthru · 2026-08-25 16:04:55 UTC
Really? Why not step outside and help water the plants? It is your backyard, after all.
swader999 · 2026-08-25 16:57:36 UTC
That's what I do but I don't really have any neighbours in eyesight.
titanomachy · 2026-08-25 15:54:36 UTC
> $20K still seems like a lot to get some mosquito bites walking through the yard to work.
In some parts of the world, people consider spending time outdoors to be a positive thing.
copperx · 2026-08-25 18:30:21 UTC
> In some parts of the world, people consider spending time outdoors to be a positive thing.
You're going to have to break that down for me.
kslambert · 2026-08-25 18:46:39 UTC
Author here. I have heard this complaint from others before. If you live in an area where it snows I am assuming this would be a pain. But a 20 foot walk to my house is not a trek. If I was in an office the bathroom and coffee would be farther away. Honestly I like the outside part of the trek, it is a nice change.
krn1p4n1c · 2026-08-25 14:48:24 UTC
I ran PVC between my house and shop/office with 2 sets of single-mode fiber instead of ethernet. Electrical code will require proper grounding for copper for lightning strikes.
veverkap · 2026-08-25 17:08:46 UTC
Do you have to do PVC or can you just bury the fiber?
someothherguyy · 2026-08-25 19:25:28 UTC
it depends on the cable type, what you are willing to spend, where you live, etc
i tried to find a page that wasn't terrible for this, still kind of bad though:
Like /u/someothherguyy said it depends on the cable type. There are shielded and jacketed outdoor cables that don't require PVC/EMT, but usually you'll have to terminate them yourself so there's additional tooling required.
I went with PVC because it's the easiest to work with, NEC only required it be buried 12in below the surface for residential, but I went to 24". I oversized the PVC a bit so I had room to run more cables as well. I filled the trench with gravel, ran the PVC over that, then filled over it with some more gravel. A thin layer of dirt, marking tape and then the rest of the dirt. Rent a trencher if you have hard ground.
If you're having a licensed electrician do the work of connecting house and office power then you can ask them to run the conduit for it at the same time.
trumbitta2 · 2026-08-25 14:55:16 UTC
I always think about it, but then I remember I couldn't sleep knowing my tech stuff is inside a shed in the backyard. Too easy to break in and steal it.
Johnny555 · 2026-08-25 15:11:52 UTC
I don't know what kind of tech stuff you have, but since you can run ethernet (or better, fiber) to the shed, you could keep most of it locked in the house and just walk out with your laptop to your workspace each day.
Monitors are relatively cheap these days, you can get a name brand 32" 4K monitor for around $300 - if someone busts in and steals it, the door/window repair will probably cost more than the monitor.
swader999 · 2026-08-25 15:21:16 UTC
There's probably lots of ways to secure it if you think about it.
rconti · 2026-08-25 17:18:51 UTC
It doesn't look any easier to break into than my house. Which is to say -- pretty easy, and yet, home break-ins are pretty uncommon.
trumbitta2 · 2026-08-26 07:53:19 UTC
I don't know. That's a wooden shed, while my house is brick and concrete with a common European armored door and roller shutters.
rconti · 2026-08-27 00:32:35 UTC
Well, in suburban Portland, where the wooden shed is, the house will be similar construction. You could very, very easily drill a hole in the exterior wall, reach through the hole, and unlock the door from the inside.
In fact, in many homes (like my own), there's a window directly adjacent to the doorknob, so you could more easily just smash the glass, reach in, and unlock the door.
And yet, it's quite uncommon for that to actually happen, and not something I spend any time worrying about.
In more urban settings or higher-crime neighborhoods, of course, people take more precautions.
eysquared · 2026-08-25 14:55:46 UTC
Im jealous of the Tuff Shed or prebuilt being an option. Where I live we have incredibly high snow loads, so any structure ends up needing to be custom built to meet our requirements (even out buildings). I've found plenty of pre-fab units that claim to handle "high snow loads" that will not meet code where I am.
I'm still planning on building out an office/studio, but it will be a much larger investment despite being able to DIY much of it.
dalyons · 2026-08-25 15:03:46 UTC
What if you just put heat tape on the roof? These sheds have small roofs, shouldn’t be prohibitive
eysquared · 2026-08-25 15:13:01 UTC
Heat tape isn't very effective with storms dropping multiple feet of wet snow in under 24 hours (or in general).
dalyons · 2026-08-25 15:25:21 UTC
well it just has to stop significant buildup over multiple days right? IDK, seems pretty effective here in tahoe where ive seen it applied on parts of peoples houses
dalyons · 2026-08-25 15:40:25 UTC
also idk, tons of people up here have regular sheds for various purposes and they seem to survive just fine
dave78 · 2026-08-25 15:50:25 UTC
Do people in Tahoe heat-tape their whole roof or just the edge where ice dams would otherwise form? I've only ever seen the latter, and even doing that will be noticeable on your power bill.
dalyons · 2026-08-26 14:52:46 UTC
Yeah it’s usually just 3-6ft on the edges of the roof. But this whole roof is tiny. Covering a 12x12 roof would be much less than one edge run on a big house . Also they only turn on when there’s actual snow falling so doesn’t use as much power as you might think
niwtsol · 2026-08-25 15:29:46 UTC
woof, where are you located, coastal/northern Canada?
eysquared · 2026-08-25 16:52:16 UTC
Cascade mountains. I've seen over 5 feet of snow in under 48 hours, then freezing rain. Its heavy! Lots of these "it'll be fine" type structures collapsed.
Building code for snow load is a factor of location and elevation here. We are around 130 lb/sq ft.
Roof pitch can help with shedding, but then you've got other problems (roof avalanches can and do kill, not to mention snow up against materials that don't want to be wet all winter).
cucumber3732842 · 2026-08-26 00:44:57 UTC
> We are around 130 lb/sq ft
That's not too bad, that's just a floor (and that's for a flat roof, it gets less demanding with pitch).
jtbaker · 2026-08-25 15:31:05 UTC
Sounds like Tahoe.
cucumber3732842 · 2026-08-25 15:39:39 UTC
This is a problem with the people and ideology that are concentrated in your jurisdiction and the resulting rules that come of that. Even the snootiest "Barack Obama is my neighbor" zip codes have permitting and code exemptions for various sorts of small sheds.
Structurally a wet fart will hold up plenty of snow when we're talking spans on the order of 10ft. A garden shed that can literally roll away in a tornado is only a few hundred dollars of material different from one that can't.
Of course Tuff Shed (or anyone else) isn't gonna make a special product line for one town in CO or wherever that wants to de-facto outlaw the construction of shed by people less than a certain wealth level. Those people can have their stuff built from scratch at great cost. Of the dozen lost sales they were likely some of the most problematic anyway.
eysquared · 2026-08-25 16:54:08 UTC
Of course they wont! Plenty of people around here still use structures not built for the load or build under the square footage that requires a permit. Those can and do fail, and I'd prefer not to be in one when they do :).
My feedback is merely: boy it'd be nice to have the option to just order a pre-built.
Cool app! I have plenty of building experience thankfully, including plenty of structures still standing under the weight of our snow load!
dearilos · 2026-08-25 19:11:41 UTC
Heya I'd love to help you bring it to life and DIY it. I'm working on https://myhomecat.com/ - which lets you design a code-compliant version and you can fiddle around with budget, needs, etc. I've helped other folks with step by step guides after they've created a design they're happy with.
Can I ask you how you're designing it right now? I could whip up some designs for you for free.
bellowsgulch · 2026-08-25 15:12:50 UTC
He spent way too much.
alehlopeh · 2026-08-25 15:14:57 UTC
Insulating -> insulting is a funny typo.
enraged_camel · 2026-08-25 15:15:25 UTC
Maybe it's just me but it blows my mind that this tiny thing cost $20k. I wish building stuff in the West wasn't so expensive.
Comments
If you are lucky and fortunate enough to live in an actual house with land, and work (or are thinking about working) remotely, seriously consider investing in an actual separate building for your office.
We bought an old house and did a full remodel and planned for an office and a work kitchen (my wife is a chef) separated from the main house (and each other).
It's been a game changer
Why start and invest in a construction project for a building that may not be staffed long term? Perhaps renting a small coworking space in town is the safer financial move. And have your employer pay for it.
only as likely as literally every other scenario. the difference is you can continue to use your backyard office for your new job
> I had tried coworking spaces but didn’t love the vibe or the idea of spending hours in a phone booth.
Fantastic.
The article states that in only 4 years it's already broken even vs renting a coworking space. Plus it is at least a theoretical bump to the property value (vs rent paid to coworking space which would be pure overhead)
Though I never specifically asked, I sincerely doubt they would have footed the bill to construct a detached building in my backyard that I could work from instead.
In my opinion it's commuting to the office which sucks, and not working in the office: I had a couple years where I walked in to work every day, and that was basically ideal. (It was, ironically, a job I started while living on the opposite side of the country: I then moved to a place about a mile from the office, quite a pleasant walk through the heart of the city.)
I've been in the game for almost 40 years now, and I'll say I've never had an office paid for by my employer that is as nice as that toughshed. I've never been in a dedicated office with a door, except when working from home.
Edit: ProTip: If you are doing concrete, rent a "Mud Mixer". Me an the kids were able to pour the 8x12x5" (130 bags of 80lbs) in well under a day, probably would have been even less if we had moved the bagged concrete to the pour site before the pour happened rather than as we were pouring.
If the office was in a place where I could reasonably expect to find other jobs as well, then that could be part of my consideration, but I would never choose to live somewhere based primarily on whatever my current job is.
I'm not a fan of commuting either but for me it's definitely the working in an office that sucks
Maybe if it wasn't an open office bullpen style place but I've only worked in places without private or semi private offices, or even cubes
This constrains the companies you can work at to ones with a local office, if you do not want to move house. If you want to live within walking distance of many companies, you could easily be looking at paying millions of dollars for a poor quality house.
There is a happy medium if you like offices (see below): co-working spaces.
> it's commuting to the office which sucks, and not working in the office
Most company offices are fucking horrific - open plan, atrocious coffee, noisy, full of people who won’t stay home when they are sick.
Nah. Other people are selfish.
Shitty open floor plans, so that other peoples drive bys become distrations
Meeting rooms that are set up to hold only 3 people, because everyone wanted smaller rooms for their 1 on 1s, mean that most meeting rooms are now too small for you to gather your team in. Which leads to people having team meetings at their desks and goes back to point 1.
Crappy equipment. I work at a large enough bank that you will have heard of it, even outside the US. You get a 1080p monitor at your hot desk. After upgrading to a 1440p over a decade ago when those cheap Korean screens came out, and having a 4k for many years now, I struggle to go back to a 1080p. Applications have so much chrome because of the larger monitors.
Hot desks can fuck off too. Come into the office so you can sit with your team. Oh, but not everyone, you guys have to go to 6 rows down.
But down that path lies a cabin innawoods.
I've heard of bomb disposal dogs, but this is an angle I hadn't previously considered
In fact, probably better to just put your desk in the bathroom for maximum efficiency!
<https://singlefamily.fanniemae.com/originating-underwriting/...>
These days, I may as well not even have a door. I put auto-shutting hinges on it, but that failed as reminder/deterrent long ago.
We've got a 10x20 out back that was supposed to be my workshop, but it's filled with all the things most Americans put in their garages - because we don't have one. I'm seriously considering a deep purge and converting at least 1/2 of to an office; the distractions and context switching are disastrous.
https://www.idler.co.uk/article/sheds-in-the-time-of-lockdow...
I wonder if I can convert an existing shed...
I have multiple Spotify playlists for this. What's neat is that I also listen to them for fun, but they also allow me to get into a work mindset.
So for me it's more of a mental walk.
https://tuhat.net/@sbr/p/big-tech-sucks
The rack warms it in the winter so I don't need any extra cooling, and I run the AC in the summer.
$20K still seems like a lot to get some mosquito bites walking through the yard to work. Lack of plumbing, coffee, etc (some of those are fixable of course) is a bit of a turnoff but perhaps the walk is part of the charm.
I find that with kids mostly in school and knowing the rules the exterior space isn’t a requirement, but I don’t have a ton of meetings these days so YMMV. Mostly this is cope because I don’t have 20K to drop on a cool office! :)
Nice work and thanks for the post!
In some parts of the world, people consider spending time outdoors to be a positive thing.
You're going to have to break that down for me.
i tried to find a page that wasn't terrible for this, still kind of bad though:
https://www.gloryoptics.com/info/how-deep-does-spectrum-bury...
I went with PVC because it's the easiest to work with, NEC only required it be buried 12in below the surface for residential, but I went to 24". I oversized the PVC a bit so I had room to run more cables as well. I filled the trench with gravel, ran the PVC over that, then filled over it with some more gravel. A thin layer of dirt, marking tape and then the rest of the dirt. Rent a trencher if you have hard ground.
If you're having a licensed electrician do the work of connecting house and office power then you can ask them to run the conduit for it at the same time.
Monitors are relatively cheap these days, you can get a name brand 32" 4K monitor for around $300 - if someone busts in and steals it, the door/window repair will probably cost more than the monitor.
In fact, in many homes (like my own), there's a window directly adjacent to the doorknob, so you could more easily just smash the glass, reach in, and unlock the door.
And yet, it's quite uncommon for that to actually happen, and not something I spend any time worrying about.
In more urban settings or higher-crime neighborhoods, of course, people take more precautions.
I'm still planning on building out an office/studio, but it will be a much larger investment despite being able to DIY much of it.
Building code for snow load is a factor of location and elevation here. We are around 130 lb/sq ft.
Roof pitch can help with shedding, but then you've got other problems (roof avalanches can and do kill, not to mention snow up against materials that don't want to be wet all winter).
That's not too bad, that's just a floor (and that's for a flat roof, it gets less demanding with pitch).
Structurally a wet fart will hold up plenty of snow when we're talking spans on the order of 10ft. A garden shed that can literally roll away in a tornado is only a few hundred dollars of material different from one that can't.
Of course Tuff Shed (or anyone else) isn't gonna make a special product line for one town in CO or wherever that wants to de-facto outlaw the construction of shed by people less than a certain wealth level. Those people can have their stuff built from scratch at great cost. Of the dozen lost sales they were likely some of the most problematic anyway.
My feedback is merely: boy it'd be nice to have the option to just order a pre-built.
Can I ask you how you're designing it right now? I could whip up some designs for you for free.