SHED COMMUTE
Americans are buying, building, converting backyard sheds into home offices
Workers use backyard buildings as home offices during pandemic
Robin Salcido and her husband have been sharing a small home office since March as America eased into the remote work era.
She's an artist. He's an engineer. But as the months ticked on, the couple in Louisville, Colorado, longed to separate their work environments.
“Let's face it, no matter how great a relationship is – and ours is pretty fantastic – no one wants to be on top of each other 24/7, especially when you're working,” Salcido said. “Now that we can't go to coffee shops, and we're really limited in other opportunities for leaving the house to get some work done, we realized we need more space.”
So they ordered a prefabricated backyard shed that's getting installed on Sept. 11. Salcido will use it at her office.
As the COVID-19 crisis enters month six, an increasing number of Americans are buying and building backyard sheds used as home offices. For some, it represents a chance to get work done away from the kids as schools
practice remote learning in the fall. For others, it's a necessity because there's no room for an office set up inside their home.
These detached, mostly selfcontained spaces are more affordable and more practical than taking on a full-scale construction project, shed buyers say.
Google queries for office sheds began to tick higher in April, a few weeks after the pandemic was declared, according to search data. Searches began trending higher again in midAugust, as the nation entered
the back-to-school season. Companies that sell backyard shed products are noticing the trend.
Tim Vack, general manager at Modern-Shed said there has been a 400% rise in interest this summer. A 50% rise in the summer is typical, as people take on more outdoor projects. The company gauges interest by downloads of its online catalog.
“A lot of companies are allowing their employees from home from now on if they choose. So, everybody is scrambling to find space to put their computer,”
Vack said. “People are growing tired of putting their laptop on their dining room table, or their kitchen countertop.”
These detached office spaces are more premium than the standard metal sheds at Home Depot. You decide on what style of wood you'd like to use, where you'd like the windows to be placed and various other customization options. The more you want, the more you pay.
Modern-Shed tailors each outdoor building to the buyer's specifications. The firm then uses independent installation companies to do all the on-theground work.
Most people are choosing to buy spaces that offer an additional 120 square feet, said Mike Koenig, president and cofounder of Studio Shed.
The 12-year-old Coloradobased company said it saw a “huge spike” in inquiries for backyard home space since March. Most of the buyers are using them for home offices, followed by school rooms for their kids and a few are being converted into home gyms, Koenig said.
“Maybe the kids are doing their schoolwork in the shed” away from parents who can then work peacefully inside the house, Koenig said.