How to Work from Home #WFH: Be Physically Prepared  

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By Modern-Shed General Manager Tim Vack

Just started or want to start working from home? Check out the first part in our series about Working From Home or read on for tips on preparing your physical surroundings for working from home.

Choosing a physical location at home to set up shop for your “office:”

Typical choices often are:

  • Dining room table
  • Kitchen nook
  • Garage
  • Attic
  • Basement
  • Corner of family room
  • Backyard tool shed
  • Spare room
  • Detached home office space, such as our Modern-Sheds
  • Home addition

The chosen space should:

  • Allow you to focus without major distractions
  • Allow for video conferencing and private phone conversations
  • Have access to natural light
  • Have enough space for your desk/chair/cabinets or shelves as necessary
  • Be customizable to create your space
  • Allow you to “leave” work

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    Leave work whenever you want, and make it home in seconds!

Over the 30-plus years that I have worked from home on and off, I have had my office in my bedroom (twice), in a spare room (twice), in the dining room (twice), in an insulated garage, in an RV and in a basement (obviously I have lived in numerous locations during the past 30 years!). Continue reading →

How to Work From Home #WFH: Be Mentally Prepared 

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By Tim Vack, Modern-Shed General Manager

Now that many of you have become part of the WFH movement, I thought I could help many of you get started and adjust. I have been working from home on and off since becoming an entrepreneur in 1987, with the latest stint being the past 9 years continuously.

I’ll detail in a series of blog posts my tips on #WFH, starting today with being mentally prepared.

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Be Mentally Prepared

Now that you are either faced with working from home by no choice of your own or are desiring to do so and have never done so before, it’s worth it to examine your thoughts on the subject, both positive and negative. Positive thoughts around WFH might include:

  • No more commuting
  • No more parking hassles
  • No more daily make-up or getting ready for work
  • Saving money on child care, parking, gas, eating out

Or the thoughts might be more subjective such as:

  • I get to wear my pajamas to work
  • I don’t have to see that person at work I don’t get along with
  • I can do laundry or other household chores during the week
  • I don’t have to work in a cubicle or pre-decorated office space of someone else’s choosing

Just as there are happy thoughts, there may also be some not-so-happy thoughts, such as:

  • I won’t see my friends from work anymore
  • I won’t get to eat lunch at those great places near work
  • I enjoyed the “me time” during my commute, by reflecting or listening to music, books or the news.

Continue reading →

An educator’s home office

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MS1Los Angeles — After years at home raising children, Susie and her husband, Josh, began to think about what it would look like for her to ramp up her career as an educational therapist. 

With a child still in elementary school, however, the couple wanted to figure out how Susie could still be around for their three daughters, but also have the time and space for work appointments that often take place after school, since Susie’s clients are also children.

That’s when Josh brought up prefabrication, a movement he’d been enamored with for two decades.

“I’ve fantasized about prefab sheds and subscribed to Dwell magazine for years,” Josh said. “The whole movement seemed cool; that kind of aesthetic and that kind of approach was appealing and exciting.”
Continue reading →

Shed with a View

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IMG_1340BAY AREA — When Thorsten and Danielle were looking for a home two-and-a-half years ago, they saw several houses that had backyard sheds and dwelling units on a number of properties.
This was what first sparked the idea about obtaining a type of shed outdoors. When the couple found their dream home, they tucked the idea away in the back of their minds, and also thought of the perfect spot for a shed in their new yard.
“Our house had just the right spot,” Thorsten recalled. “The previous owners had a dilapidated play structure that we tore down. We had motivation to build something there, especially since I was already working one or two days a week at home and my wife, Danielle, works at home.”
Thorsten works in the technology department of a luxury automobile company, while Danielle works in the couture women’s retail industry.
IMG_1434Thorsten commutes about 50 miles to work three to four days a week, while Danielle works from home a few weeks at a time, then travels throughout the country visiting her brand’s stores a week or more at a time each month.
They both wanted dedicated home office space at home.
“When you work remotely, you like the notion of leaving your living space,” Thorsten said. “It takes 15 seconds to get to my office and then I’m not far if I need to go back to my personal space.”
Thorsten found the process to be smooth and simple with Modern-Shed’s design professionals and installation partners.
In light of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States, the home office has proved even more useful.
“Right now, we’re being encouraged to work from home because of the virus situation,” Thorsten said. “I like having a work space that’s not my dining room table.”

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New Window Options!

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In addition to the standard white or sand-colored vinyl, Modern-Shed now offers Ply Gem Pro series windows which have co-extruded frames with either dark bronze or black on the exterior and always white on the interior. This is far superior to a painted option.
In limited markets, we also now offer Andersen Windows in the 100 series Fibrex line which come in five exterior colors and four interior colors. These are strong, environmentally smart and attractive.

Connect with a design professional to learn more. 

Pantone Color of the Year: Classic Blue

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Pantone chose its 2020 Color of the Year — Classic Blue.

Blue is a popular color for our Modern-Sheds, and we agree with the choice to feature the color this year because it evokes “calm, confidence, and connection (and) highlights our desire for a dependable and stable foundation on which to build as we cross the threshold into a new era.”
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Let’s build that stable foundation for the year, and this new era, on the strong and stable foundation of Modern-Sheds! Visit us online for more ideas, information and inspiration!

Design Pro Spotlight: Meet Trevor

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Trevor Hynson is Modern-Shed’s newest design professional!
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Hynson lives in Western Montana with his wife and two children, and will be selling Modern-Sheds in San Diego County and East of the Mississipi River.

He will be working with our new East Coast install team, Hynson Brothers Construction.

“For us, the opportunity to work from home is a dream come true,” he said. “After spending most of my life in the building industry, I feel that with Modern-Shed I can finally offer our customers something much more valuable than a building. I can offer them the freedom to be closer to home.”

Find a design professional working in your area online at Modern-Shed.com.

Need to Work From Home?

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At Modern-Shed, we love to showcase how our sheds enrich the lives of our customers. Modern-Shed now has a quick turnaround on a specific home office design for customers who need to work at home quickly.

The Modern-Shed Home Office has become an even more attractive option for our customers, since working from home has multiple advantages — including avoiding sick co-workers and having a dedicated work space when you’ve been asked to work at home.

Many of our customers have expressed relief at having a home office in their backyard in light of the COVID-19 epidemic.

And whether it’s creating space for an artistic environment close to home or carving out a home office that is away from the bustle of your actual house, Modern-Sheds are here for YOU — and so are the design professionals who work to create the best shed that fits you and your life.

Below, meet three families whose problems have been solved and desires met by Modern-Shed’s tailored approach, and see how thrilled they are with them!

Exactly the way you want it

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IMG_0489Greater Bay Area — What do you do when you want to jam out, but don’t want to bother your family? That’s where Modern-Shed comes in!

Jeff W. has been playing the guitar since he was 10, and he still owns the first guitar he bought when he was 13.

Now, he has close to 28 instruments, plus amplifiers, pedal effects and more musical accoutrements.

“All of a sudden, it all fills up,” he says. “I realized it was time to move my stuff out of the house. I love playing the guitar, but my family doesn’t want to hear it all the time. So why not take advantage of someting like this when we had the room in the backyard?”

Continue reading →

Under the Cedar Tree

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db3f3312-f5b1-45d1-bc88-f8ae08e6aa41SEATTLE — “This was a cool way to have our backyard actually work for us.”

Eric and Rebecca are counting the ways that their Modern-Shed Airbnb, actually two sheds connected by a deck, has been a positive addition in their lives.

Already comfortable with renting their entire house on Airbnb when they go on vacation, the couple started to think about building an additional unit in their backyard to bring in additional revenue.

“We were really looking at how it would be a good idea to do that to off-set the mortgage and add to the square footage of the house to raise the equity of the home,” Eric says. “Once I realized adding 240 square feet would effectively pay off the construction cost in equity, it was a no-brainer. That is more or less what happened. If I can increase the monthly cashflow by $1500 or $2000 a month through the profit of an Airnb and if we wanted to sell the house, we’d make all the cost back, then why not do it? Continue reading →