ORC Week 2: Progress With The Guest Cottage Shed
Welcome to week 2 of the One Room Challenge, hosted by Calling It Home! If all goes as planned, we’ll transform our garden shed into a guest cottage over the next four weeks, with a modern farmhouse meets cozy bohemian cottage feel.
When we left off at ORC week one, I showed you the before pictures of the guest shed and we discussed the design plans. Jason has been more productive than I have this past week. Granted, I’ve been shuffling kids back and forth to baseball games and spending hours stripping a door. More on that later.
This part of the transformation was mostly about fixing the prior construction problems and getting the room energy efficient.
Thursday was spent taking off the siding so the walls could be pushed out about 1-1/2 inches to prevent water seepage where the walls meet the outer foundation of the shed. The OSB shows signs of water stains but luckily no rotting. The old storm windows were removed since they weren’t energy efficient.
Friday after work, we headed to Lowes to pick up the rest of the supplies we needed for the weekend. We spent Saturday framing in for the new windows and placing new OSB on the exterior walls.
The built-in bed will be placed below this new window. The window sits high, so you can lounge on the bed without leaning against the glass.
A bar for two will go underneath the windows on the right.
Since the door was taken off the hinges, I decided this would be a great time to strip it down to the bare wood so I could stain it a lighter color.
Four hours and 15 sheets of sandpaper later, this is where I left off.
Lesson learned: you never know what you’ll end up with when you strip a 60-year-old door until the stain goes on. The top panel turned out to be a completely different species of wood. The base of the door also had water stains I didn’t notice until the stain went on.
On to Plan B. I decided to paint the door a nice, neutral gray, Benjamin Moore’s Kendall Charcoal. I think it was meant to be that color all along.
On Sunday, we replaced the rest of the vinyl siding and hung the door with its new keypad lock.
A dorm refrigerator, microwave, and sink will go on the left side of the bed.
On Monday evening, I painted a green dresser I found at Habitat for Humanity. I planned to paint it blue but went with black instead, and I love how it turned out. More details on the finish later!
We’ll cut off the bottoms of the feet since they’re broken, and the dresser needs to sit lower for the coffee bar.
Jason will weld a floating metal shelf to hang above the coffee bar, similar to the one on the last episode of this season of Fixer Upper. Ours will be a mixture of metal and wood.
Now we’re at Tuesday, the last day of week one. Most of the insulation went in tonight.
It’s feeling less like a dilapidated shed and more like a livable space.
So, these are the plans for the next 7 days:
- Finish the insulation
- Apply shiplap to the walls and ceiling
- Prep the shiplap for paint
- Stain the boards for the bar and shelving
- Make an art project for the TV wall
So far, everything is going as planned. You’ll see a huge change by next Wednesday!
Catch up on all the Modern Farmhouse Cottage Guest Shed Projects here:
Wow! This is so inspiring!
We just bought a house that has a 10×12 shed and we’re hoping to do the same thing. It also has power!
– One big question I have though, is how you got rid of those cross beams? Our shed has these awful cross beams going across and they’re quite low compared to a regular 9′ ceiling. I noticed by the end of your timelapse that you only had 1 beam going across. How did you remove the others and still support the room?
– Also, I’ve read about adding ventilation to the roof after inserting the insulation. Did you do this?
thanks so much!
This looks exactly like what I want to do in our backyard for a pool house. Did I miss the dimension of the cottage in your first post? This is going to be beautiful!!
Hi Terri! The cottage’s outside dimensions are 10 x 12′ and the inside square footage is 109 sq ft.
What a great space to work with for your ORC project! I love the gray door too. I get hung up on leaving old things as original as possible, but I know that certain updates will highlight the beauty not detract from it. You nailed it with that door.
Wow – that all looks like a big undertaking but you’ve done so much already! Love your shelf inspiration – will look forward to seeing that project. I love all your plans – it’s going to be a great space when you’re done.
It looks like it is coming together nicely. I love watching the progress as Jason and you put your time and energy into the Guest Cottage. Soon, you will no longer be able to call it a shed. I can’t wait to see the finished product. Thank you both for sharing your experiences with us.