If you follow along on Instagram, I’ve been sharing all about our old garden shed renovation. I wanted to share on my blog too as a way to record our progress and as a reference in case anyone else is tackling a similar project.
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Original Plans for our Shed
As I shared in this post, our original plans were to convert this old 20×20 shed into an office for my husband since he is now working from home. We have limited space for his office in our house, and we also wanted to have a quiet place for him when he is on meetings.
Due to the cost to restore the building, we wanted to make back some of the money it would cost to renovate it! So, we started looking into converting it into a tiny home that we could use as a rental or Air BnB on the weekends.
We met with probably 15-20 different construction companies to get their opinions on if the building was able to restored. Additionally, we asked them their rates for individual jobs.
We met with contractors, plumbers, electricians, siding and window installers, termite inspectors, roofers, and more! My uncle who has flipped lots of homes also came to give his opinion.
I’m so grateful that most companies do not charge to come out and give an estimate. We met with A LOT of people.
Some of the people we worked with thought that it would be more than doable to restore the building. Others said it was possible but that it would cost as much if not more to restore it properly than to build a new building entirely.
Challenges We Faced During Our Garden Shed Renovation
If we moved forward with converting this shed into an Air BnB (which would enable us to make the investment back and more in the long run), our budget was around $30K for the entire project.
We got a lot of different estimates, but these were some of the best prices we found in our area. This pricing may differ significantly based off of where you live.
Job Estimates (2024)
Siding, Windows, + Doors: $15 K
Electric: $7K
Plumbing: $10 K
Minisplit: $1.5 K
Air BnB Application Fees: $800 (approx.)
Termite Treatment: $250
These jobs alone put us over our $30K budget. Plus, it didn’t include foundation repairs, flooring, drywall, fixtures, decor, extra permit fees, or any interior work.
Sure, we could have done a lot of this ourselves and cut down significantly on costs. But because we had plans to use it as an Air BnB as well as an office, we needed a lot of the work done by professionals to get it up to code. Our city requires a lot of the work for AirBnBs to be done by licensed professionals.
We also priced out starting over from scratch. However, while the building would have been new and up to code it would have cost nearly double our budget to replicate a building of this size.
The above photo is during the clean-out that we did ourselves. We used contractor bags to hold the old insulation and debris. Then, we rented a dumpster to get rid of most of the junk from this garden shed renovation.
Change of Plans for our Garden Shed Renovation
So, we started debating what to do with this old building! The roof is still in really good condition. While it needs a lot of work to get it up to code for a rental or office… it is stable overall and still has a lot of life left in it!
My husband had the idea to convert it into half chicken coop/ half tool and garden shed. We have a chicken coop that was already on the property and it has worked well to get us started with raising backyard chickens. Unfortunately, it is starting to fall apart. It is also very patched up, has limited space, and is really close to our house. This attracts a lot of flies which is annoying!
We are turning about 1/3 of the building into a chicken coop and the other 2/3 will be for tool and garden storage. We might even add a bigger door so that he can fit his riding lawn mower in here to free up space in our garage for our vehicles!
Considering the Cost Savings of our New Plan
For this garden shed renovation, we can do all of the work ourselves with the exception of if we add electrical. Instead of costing well over $30 K, we’ll get a much larger chicken coop and organized space to store our tools. These new garden shed renovation plans will save us tens of thousands of dollars.
We think this project will cost in the $2-$3K range total. This is if we choose to add a larger door and new electrical–without this it will be much less. However, we were able to get an incredible deal on most of our siding which will save us so much!
We are using this siding, and found the exact kind we needed on clearance at Menards. However, most of the siding sheets were 10 feet instead of 8 foot sheets and are typically very expensive due to the extra length. Instead of paying about $90 per sheet we got it for $15 a sheet! It was a crazy good deal!
I highly recommend checking the clearance section at your local hardware store.
What About the Office and Air BnB Plans?
As for my husband’s office, we decided to order a much smaller, pre-built building. It will need electrical, but will not need plumbing or many of the other features mentioned above.
Although we won’t be able to do an Air BnB with this plan, we are able to fix up the old shed into a coop/garden shed plus set up a smaller, new office for significantly less than what the siding alone would have cost us on our original plan.
Garden Shed Renovation Photos
We’re still very much in the renovation process, but here are a few photos of our progress so far!
Chicken Coop Side
This is the far side of the shed that we are turning into a chicken coop. I finished removing insulation and swept and vacuumed out this space using a wet/dry vac like this.
We are going to put hardware cloth over the broken windows to allow ventilation and light into the coop.
The electrical is no longer active, but we need to remove it. My husband started building the inner coop wall with wood and hardware cloth.
We are going to use a deep-litter method for the coop bedding. We bought six bales of straw as the base, and we will add pine shavings on top for their litter.
I didn’t know if six straw bales would be enough for this approximately 8×20 foot space. However, four bales ended up being more than enough to get started! We will add the additional straw on top per the deep litter method.
My husband hung the chicken feeder from ceiling of the coop using a bike hook that we already had and paracord. Then, he built a roost for the chickens using scrap wood that we had lying around!
We are waiting on our new roll-out nesting box from HenGear, so for now the chickens have been laying directly in the straw.
Exterior and Storage Side
We let our chickens free-range, but my husband fenced in a portion of the out outside of the coop to help the chickens get used to where to go. He used t-posts, zip ties, and field fencing… most of which we already had on hand!
Eventually, we want to fence off the back acre and a half portion of our property to let the chickens free range, which will keep them from getting into my garden.
We have made some progress on the garden/tool shed side; however, it still has a long ways to go! Below is a photo from the garden storage side, facing the coop, prior to the completion of the door and wall.
I will share the final remodel of the chicken coop, storage shed, and exterior in a future post with detailed directions and links to what we used for the project.
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