Worth Every Penny

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She shed #4PASADENA — Before purchasing their Modern-Shed, Katherine’s husband, Kent, would often grow frustrated by her little piles of paper littered throughout the guest bedroom.

“We have a three-bedroom house, and my husband has two girls who come and go and need the bedroom,” Katherine says. “I need some private space to do work because I’m a teacher, a place where if I need to keep piles out, I can close the doors, close the blinds and no one would know.”

Katherine’s 9′ by 10′ Modern-Shed fits nicely in the couple’s backyard, complementing their home and appearing as though it belonged there the whole time. Continue reading →

Let’s Get Grounded: A Look at Pin Pier

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At Modern-Shed, we’re often asked: What needs to be done if a site needs to be leveled before placing a Modern-Shed on it?

 

This is a great question and one that comes up often in hilly areas like Seattle or the San Francisco Bay Area, where many of our customers reside – for these customers, building a retaining wall can get expensive and could require pricey geotech engineering and design work.

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The personal touch

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Rebecca’s 640-square-foot Modern-Shed home and workspace

PORT TOWNSEND — Rebecca’s experience with Modern-Shed came about through a desire to be closer to old friends and have a space to work on her art. It also included a little bit of luck.

Rebecca, a sculptor and woodworker, grew up in Seattle, but lived in Alaska for 30 years and later Portland, Ore.

She decided a couple years ago that she wanted to move to Port Townsend, a picturesque coastal city in Washington, where a close-knit circle of her childhood friends lived. However, she struggled finding housing.

“I was looking around for an already built home, but I couldn’t find one at the time,” Rebecca recalls. “I wouldn’t have built a house from scratch if I could find one. I had done a fair bit of construction in Alaska and didn’t want to invest a lot of time building, but there just was nothing available. That’s the truth, there was nothing appealing whatsoever.” Continue reading →

The Modern-Shed Boat House

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GIG HARBOR — Down a winding path, nestled in the Evergreen forests near the Key Peninsula, Kerrie and Rich found a place they could call home.

Their home, however, left some things to be desired. In the meantime, they wanted to create a comfortable space where they could work, relax and entertain loved ones while enjoying the view of Henderson Bay and all that the Pacific Northwest has to offer.

“Our house just needs lots of work, and the Modern-Shed takes the pressure off,” Kerrie says. “It’s a two-bedroom house that was built in 1958. Now, with the shed, we have an extra bedroom and a nice place where we can bring our guests.”

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The work-from-home solution

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PORTLAND — When you’re two executives working in high-powered fields, finding space to work is critical.

It becomes even more so when you have two young children at home.

Sara and Greg both work from their home in Portland, though now Sara travels 80 percent of the time for her job.

Before finding Modern-Shed, they both juggled working from home with working outside the home in various offices.

“We needed an extra work space in our home because even though we had offices and were working within other offices, we’d occasionally be working in our home,” Sara says. “It became more of a heavy need to work at home since we have two small children. But working in your house is not realistic when the kids get home at 3 p.m.” Continue reading →

Room to think

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OLYMPIA — Two years ago, every single room of Olivia’s three-bedroom, ranch-style home in western Washington was occupied.

The mom of two worked from home and she needed a solution. Enter Modern-Shed.

“I have a house that is basically perfect in terms of the location,” Olivia says. “It’s near the school district, it’s near the city, but not in the city. But it’s really small. I needed an office because I was tired of working on the dining room table.”

The single mom worked from home as a psychologist and creative writer, and she dreamed of some day building a tiny house.

“I was looking for local and affordable options,” she recalls. “I had been toying with building a tiny house for a long time and even taken workshops from Jay Shafer and from Dee Williams with my dad. But it would take all year for me to build one. Since I didn’t have a handyman in the house who wanted to do that with me, I decided that prefab made a whole lot of sense.” Continue reading →

The ideal commute

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PORTLAND — Within the first year that Steve started his consulting business, he knew he needed to find a space to work outside of his house.

Steve and his wife, Michelle, and two daughters live in a three-bedroom Portland home built in 1912.

Steve works in accessory and product design, with his hands on everything from watches and eyewear to other wearable technologies for brands like Nike and Timex, while Michelle designs and creates handbags and clothing. 

“I was working in our finished basement, which is a nice basement, but there was a lack of light and still, it’s in the basement and it’s in the house,” Steve recalls. “I started looking at renting spaces or doing a prefab build. My goal was to get a modular system I could build myself.”IMG_4034 Continue reading →