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$20k is too little.

Get an air quality monitor!

Thank you for the cool post.

> I am almost 4 years in

Also worth mentioning 2026 - 4 = 2022. Not a great year to be stick building from a cost perspective.

My 12x16 took way more time, but I did it all myself. I mostly worked at night once the heavy loud stuff was done because of the young kid factor. But at only a couple hours a day, it took about 4 months. Although I did build mine down into a ~3 feet deep basement of sorts which complicated it (I didn’t want it visible from outside my fence). Even did off grid electric with solar to avoid needing contractors or permits. I won’t hate because I get the time trade off, and I really hate/appreciate a few trades more than before (drywall the most). For reference mine was $15k in 2025.

The main thing I’d advise people against and say you could have possibly saved on is the structure. Tuff Shed is usually over priced and could be built usually with $2k-3k of material and labor. But the time you did this may have made that hard too, all the contractors were slammed.

I'm in the middle of finishing out my own (significantly larger) shed I just had built, basically all DIY except for the structure itself. The number that popped into my head at the start of your post was $30k - each step adds up when you're paying small job overheads. That you did it for $20k is pretty great.

That you think $20k was a good deal for this shack in your backyard is indicative of how little we know about building.

You got raked over the coals. You can downvote me, but as someone who knows how to build structures man, I feel so sorry for people reading your message thinking this is OK.

This is really, really poor quality for the cost.

I’m not even a commercial builder. A bag of Portland cement concrete is $5/bag. You don’t need to pay $2k for such a small foundation.

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.)

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.

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

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.

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...

It's smarter (and cheaper!) to live by yourself because your entire house is distraction-free.

Head to the shed:

https://www.idler.co.uk/article/sheds-in-the-time-of-lockdow...

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.

The perfect work-from-home office is a tethered balloon. Change my mind.

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.

I bought my first minisplit ~4 years ago since none of the contractors were available in the hot summer. I bought the tools as well (vacuum pump, manifold, pipe cutters, etc.).

It cost me ~650$ total.

The next time I bought a minisplit (3.5kW one), I already had the tools and it cost me only 450$. A proper one meant for use during harsh winter would probably costs a bit more though, at around 1000$.

So I have set up a few of them for my family and friends so far. The units come pre-charged with gas for ~5M of ducts, there is nothing hard to set them up.

I also set up ESP32 controllers so I could attach them to Home Assistant, bypassing any Chinese cloud apps, etc.

I couldn't believe it either because it seemed so expensive! EU based colleague got a high-ish end japanese unit (purhased and professionally installed with over 20% VAT on parts and labour) for less than that. The devices can be had for 1000 bucks or less.

I figured it had to be because the US devices are very different but they seem to be the same, and the explanation given by the usual automaton suspect was that the climate control business in the US is basically a cartel with highly inflated prices and shady regulations around how they can be sold.

Not sure if the claim is valid, but the price diff is remarkable so there must be some explanation. Usually everything you can buy is cheaper in the US.

Honestly, I would recommend just doing it yourself. Especially if you have a contractor pull in the electrical connection for it. I installed a pre-charged unit in a much more complicated attic setup (condenser mounted to outside wall on second floor, 20' of refrigerant lines run with lots of angles) and the whole thing took 6-8 hours with no experience. Mounting it to a shed where you're basically just cutting a hole in a wall and the indoor unit and outdoor unit are in more or less the same location should be extremely straight forward. The unit cost me less than $1k five years ago and has been running perfectly ever since.

one thing about discount DIY mini splits: they're sometimes/often the same model, with a hodge podge of similar but not identical components. it can be very difficult to get a repair person to work on these - they stand a lot to lose if they try to operate on it and make it worse. they really prefer consistency, and - they also seem to harbor a bit of a distaste for diy systems. Actually, I was educated by one serviceperson's opinion and by the end of their complaints, the experience cost more than the cash, injury wise. But I think relaying this, has some value, because I suspect it's common.

> I jumped to the end and saw $2.3k for the mini split and couldn't believe it. I've installed mini splits on two homes and the quotes were always in the $15-25k range for 3-5 head units, so $2.3k for a head + outdoor condenser unit sounded implausible, but then I saw he found a surprisingly good deal:

It doesn’t take long to install a mini-split condenser with a single air handler. Precast pad for the condensing unit, set the condensing unit on the pad (or buy a wall mount if you need to mount it off the ground), run sealtite to the condenser from the disconnect switch and pull in wire, drill two holes for the line sets and one hole for the power/signal cable that runs from the condenser to the air handler, mount the air handler, connect the line sets, plug in the power/signal cable, install and wire the thermostat. Seal the holes with silicone and turn the mini-split on.

It’s less than a day of work, finding a mechanical contractor to install equipment you furnish for $160-175/hr shouldn’t be hard, contractors just like ripping off homeowners because they don’t know any better.

You don’t really even need a mechanical contractor with precharged line sets, just ensure the disconnect switch is off and locked out before touching any line voltage wiring, and make sure you mount anything heavy to studs and not plywood or drywall.

Author of the blog post here. That new "for business" line was added in 2024, a year after I completed this build. It's good to know now though in case we sell and I want to do another build like this.

Mini split + ductless ERV [1] would probably be cost efficient and effective for this home office. No need to get a full ducted hvac setup.

[1] e.g. https://www.pioneerminisplit.com/products/pioneer-ecoasis-50...

There isn't really any clinical evidence for CO2 levels impacting stuff beyond so called "sleep efficiency," where the effect is small (above 1000 ppm is 5% reduction in sleep efficiency) and it has the counterintuitive effect that less efficient sleep is sleeping longer, which is usually what people want. That said, placebo effects are still real.

In this day and age, where material stuff is so cheap, isn’t 20K for a tiny shed crazy? Clearly it is because it involves so much work, and work is so expensive, but I can’t help but think there should be a technical solution to this. Or buildings are just not automatable? I’m amazed.

It was about $9k for the shed and the foundation, poured and installed. The other $11k was for everything else making it a living space and not just a shed. Not so bad in that context.

For reference, ~2 years ago I did a 8x12 shed for under $3K, DIY. It is not insulated or finished inside. Footer and slab were under a grand, I used some reclaimed 2x4s and bought the rest, sheathing, roofing, flashing, self-made windows were around another $1,200-$1,500. Paint was the real surprise at almost $300.

Theres a baseline cost for work to be done, the OP decided to build an 8x10, but easily could cost a similar amount or a few thousand more for a shed 4x larger.

> But 8x10 for $20,000 just goes to show how expensive USA is for construction.

Labor is expensive. You could probably close to double the size for an additional $10,000, you’d need another yard and a half of concrete for the foundation (6” depth*80 sqft = 40 cubic feet) and more material for the building, but not twice as much material, or labor. Electrical service could stay the same.l and the mini-split wouldn’t have to be much bigger.

DIY via https://buildfreely.com

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.

What if you just put heat tape on the roof? These sheds have small roofs, shouldn’t be prohibitive

Sounds like Tahoe.

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.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who found this amusing!

It was cold in the winter and hot in the summer. How dare it do that to me. Clearly the only option is insult.

What do you use on the house and on the shed side to convert to CAT6?

i did a 24x36, with a loft. 2015, 32,000 bucks from lavalley's in newport nh, installed 80 miles away in another random town. poured slab. 6 windows, 2 garage doors. i realized, all i did was build a garage, not a work from home office.

but over the next few years i learned so many hobby art projects: insulation, electrical, sheetrock. a few inspections, a few consults. a few surprises that people in this state can just go buy the stuff at a box store!

and then eventually, my 12x6 foot office appeared, the same width as a 1960s metal tanker desk. finally!

and ... i instantly hated working out there. i didnt make it 6 weeks. it's just an office for storing crap, now: i work out of the house, where the kitchen, dogs, bathroom, are. but the journey was worth it, even if the destination was not.

West coast prices are in a different ballpark. Im shocked at how cheap the concrete work was. I got 20 quotes and 6k was the cheapest for a 12x12 pour.

I have a neighbor 100k+ into a foundation retrofit for his living room.

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.

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.

There's probably lots of ways to secure it if you think about it.

R-19. You can see label in the picture.

Have you started designing? If you're open to it - I could help you jump start this and give you a few designs for free based on what you're thinking about.

Now is the time https://buildfreely.com

True, things in the west tend to cost more than elsewhere (I'm in Seattle WA.)

My mother-in-law lives in rural Missouri and had her 6x10 bathroom remodeled in 2025. Full gut replacement of everything. Total cost: $5600. I got a quote for something similar in a bit larger bathroom in our house in Seattle. Quoted price: $31,000.

Labor is a good chunk of cost, and the OP presented that he simply didn't have the time available to him to do that work himself. On the other hand, I built 20-ish feet of fencing for our backyard this summer, matching an existing design we had done several years ago. Quoted price from the same company that did it the first time: $9800. I did the work myself. My total cost: $1400.

That works out great, right? I also have a significant investment in all the right tools: compound mitre saw, construction-grade table saw, nail guns, impact/hammer/regular drills, angle grinders, power sanders, every drill bit in captivity -- I don't really lack for anything. These make a huge difference in the workmanship of the final outcome.

And that was just a fence. I've considered building an external office here at our house. When I start to take into account the scope of converting an outdoor shed to an acceptable backyard office, I hit the brakes. Electrical power under proper permits, adequate security, something that holds up under our weather, potential water/sewer access, and sufficient space to work (I can't live without a whiteboard)...there is more scope than meets the eye.

All things considered, I think the OP did a pretty good job here in terms of cost control and recognizing what he could do (windows) vs. needed someone else to do (proper electrical.)

A lot of that cost is labour. Look at all the spots it says "contracted" in the breakdown. If you can do a lot of the work yourself, then you can save a lot of $$$, but it's a tradeoff of course. (They also could have saved quite a bit by just having a window unit AC, but that's up to them.)

The building is cheap, the labor is expensive. I built a much larger shed in volumetric space last year for 1/4th the cost.

Seems about right given labor. If you do most things yourself other than electrical, can probably cut cost a fair bit. But tradespeople are expensive when you can even get them.

It's probably more expensive now. No date stamp on the article but was first submitted to HN in 2023.

You can put in an awning or covered walkway between the buildings. You can even do a fully enclosed, fully climate controlled hallway with lots of windows and doors out to the yard, etc. Just depends on how much you want to pay and your imagination.

I've seen some properties where they build ponds underneath the indoor hallway with glass flooring to see the fish and stuff in the pond. Obviously wild things like that cost a bit more then a simple awning or covered walkway.

It's only water. It'll wash off.

Buy an umbrella?

Do you have to do PVC or can you just bury the fiber?

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.

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.

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.

> $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.

~$250/sf isnt really that far off from median though.

No, that is the cost of labor and materials.

There is no country on earth that doesn't have the massive wealth disparity where some people can't afford to buy a home while other people can afford a shed.

I'm sure it would increase the cost of the project by many times and require more complex permits, but just think how cool it would be to access your office shed through an underground tunnel.

But you've got to shovel and clear snow regardless? Shoveling a small path and being careful how you take off your shoes sure beats scraping ice off of a car and dealing with the plows' windrow.

The biggest problems I see is wanting to frame out the walls with 2x6's for thicker insulation, ceiling trusses at 16 oc for snow load and thicker for insulation as well (or lose the headroom and build a traditional ceiling/attic), and of course more heating load from the heat pump.